In case you didn't already know or suspect this, according to an article in the on-line version of the Quito newspaper El Comercio :
http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/ca … acion.html
Real estate prices per square meter are up in at least one area in Cuenca from $700 to $1200 in five years, and the cost of the basic "canasta" or food basket/cart items are around $660/month in Quito. As you might expect the three most expensive cities for food are Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca, in that order according to the article (although further down they contradict this information and say that Cuenca is the most costly for the "canasta básica".
The article does point out that in Cuenca, foreigners living there are only one of several factors driving up costs. This is nothing new, over 50 years ago when I lived in Quito people were complaining that the gringos who lived there paid their help far too much and were upsetting the economy...
What's the take-away for gringos? Maybe learn to "regatear" (bargain, haggle) more like the locals?
From another article at
http://www.metroecuador.com.ec/64596-ca … n-072.html
it's sobering to read:
"Por otra parte, el INEC destacó que el costo de la cesta básica de productos -con la que mide las variaciones de precio- se ubicó en enero en 628,27 dólares, mientras que el ingreso promedio familiar (familias con 1,6 perceptores de ingresos) llegó a 634,67 dólares."
...which is to say, the cost of the basic canasta is about the same as the average family income.
INEC (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos) has a website which may load slowly but is interesting reading:
www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/