Carlos Sold Coffee on the Street: Now He Is About to Buy His First Home

Carlos Medina is 34 years old and has spent eight years selling coffee and snacks at the Portal del Norte transit hub in Bogotá. He earns between $900,000 and $1,400,000 COP per month depending on the season. He lives with his wife and two children in a rented room in Suba for $450,000 COP. Until six months ago, he was convinced that no bank would ever open its doors to him.

What Carlos did not know — and what this article wants to share with thousands of people in his same situation — is that Colombia has financing mechanisms designed specifically for informal workers. They are not easy or fast, but they exist. And they work.

The invisible wall: why banks seem impossible

The traditional banking system is designed to assess risk based on formal income, employment certificates, and account statements. A street vendor has no employment letter, no pay stubs. And their bank account, if they have one, shows irregular movements that scoring models interpret as instability — not because the person is unreliable, but because the system was not built to read them.

There is one door that few people know about: the National Savings Fund (FNA).

The surprise: the FNA reads variable income

The FNA is a public entity that since 2014 has opened its doors to independent and informal workers through a different approach: instead of requiring an employment letter, it accepts bank statements, sworn declarations, and the applicant's own savings history within the institution as proof of income.

The process is not instant. It requires opening a programmed savings account at the FNA and maintaining it for at least 12 months, demonstrating consistent savings capacity. But that year of discipline is exactly what Carlos needed anyway to build his down payment.

Carlos's real numbers

Carlos earns an average of $1,150,000 COP per month. The FNA applies a debt capacity of 30% of income, equating to a maximum monthly payment of approximately $345,000 COP. With a 20-year loan at 12% annual interest (FNA rate for informal workers), that payment supports a loan of around $28–$32 million COP.

Here is where the subsidy comes in. Being a worker with income below 2 SMMLV ($2,840,000 in 2026) and registered in SISBEN, Carlos qualifies for the FONVIVIENDA VIP subsidy: up to $32 million COP that does not need to be repaid and goes directly toward the down payment.

A VIP home in Bogotá (Bosa, Usme, Ciudad Bolívar, Suba) costs between $65M and $85M COP. The full equation: subsidy ($32M) + FNA loan ($38M) + personal savings ($15M) = $85M home, with a monthly payment of approximately $380,000 COP — less than what Carlos pays in rent today.

How MiTecho helps workers with variable income

MiTecho.co's calculator has a specific module for non-fixed income. Instead of asking for a single salary, it asks for your monthly range (minimum and maximum), your real average over the past six months, and calculates debt capacity across three scenarios: conservative, moderate, and optimistic.

This allows Carlos — and any vendor, driver, entrepreneur, or day laborer — to see in concrete numbers what loan they can sustain, what subsidy they qualify for, and how long they need to save to reach the required down payment.

The house is more than bricks

Informal employment in Colombia should not be synonymous with exclusion from the dream of homeownership. The instruments exist. The path exists. It just needs to be known. If you are Carlos — or know someone who is — this article is the map. MiTecho.co is the compass.