BTW - Exchange rates here are not manipulated by interest rates. They are falsely held down very low (making the peso way over-valued) by the government, one of the most common methods being the government spending its Dollar reserves to buy pesos, creating a false demand. Anything you know about how economics works in other parts of the world can be thrown out the window here
The estimated unofficial inflation here is supposed to be around 30% annually. I'm not convinced of that, I think it's more like 40%. Last I heard the government was finally reporting somewhere around 20-25%. Right off the bat, any prices we're talking about now will most likely be at least 15% higher when you come - assuming that things don't get worse, which is certainly not a given. (And assuming your arrival date was Jan 2016 and not 2017? Things could be much better in 2017, or they could be worse - we simply have no way of knowing what the future holds here)
If you have GBP, the current published official rate is a bit over 14 Pesos to 1 GBP. This is about the same rate that we can sell Dollars here on the black market as of today. Taking pesos out of ATMs here will get you the official GBP rate (which is why Nikad was talking about losing 50% of your money). Given the price of the Dollar to the Peso and the price of the Dollar to the GBP in real international markets (i.e., not here), it should be quite a bit higher on the black market here than the published official rate here. For example, the standard Dollar to GPB rate is roughly 1.5 to 1. Given a black market rate (called the blue market here) of 14 Dollars to the Peso, it should be something like 21 GBP to the Peso on the black market.The GBP may not have quite such a high value here on the black market simply because it may not be traded very much and everyone here is Dollar-crazy.
Since you didn't tell us how much in GBP you'll have each month (or I didn't see it), I don't know if what you're thinking in pesos may not even be higher than you are thinking if you could do something with cash on the black market. You could be looking somewhere around 70K pesos per month, which is a significant deal changer in my opinion.
People have mentioned the guarantee required to have a long-term lease. The laws here favor the renter heavily, so the owners have come up with a way to offset their exposure to risk - the guarantee is normally another person's apartment linked to your lease that will guarantee that you will not destroy the apartment or will not squat in the apartment without paying rent, etc. (Don't even ask "then what is the deposit for?" Heh.) The person and their apartment that was used in the guarantee, therefore, is at risk and that makes it difficult to get someone to give you a guarantee, not to mention you have to find someone to begin with who you know well enough to even ask.
Long-term leases are not usually furnished (though at least an oven and sometimes air conditioners may be included). This means you have to think about buying everything you need to furnish a home.
Otherwise, you are talking temporary rentals. They are furnished, but for the same bang for the buck are more expensive than long-term (except adding in the cost of furnishing a long-term apartment). Short term leases, by law, are limited to 6 months. It used to be that it was hard to find a temp apartment for more than a month or two at a time because they were in high demand for tourism, but that has fallen off quite a bit in the last couple of years and you may have more luck finding longer-term temporaries. After a second renewal of a 6-month contract, by law the contract automatically converts into a long-term lease, but many owners don't realize that and will lease to you for a full two years in 6 month increments and not realize they are exposed.
Most long-term leases here come with built-in inflation rates after the end of the first year. I was lucky to get 20%, which used to be the standard (even when inflation was around 5%!!), but many people are now seeing things like 30%, or 15% every 6 months. Temporary leases will often go up every 6 month lease expiration.
There are many other items to think about, but they aren't all coming to my head right now.
Here's a rough budget:
Fixed Costs (long term lease):
Deposit: 12,000 (1 month usually)
Commission: 24,000 (2 months usually)
Furnish: 70,000 (?? more?)
Total: 106,000
Monthly Costs:
Apartment: 12,000 (may be low, may be slightly high)
Bldg Expenses: 5,000 (only if long term lease)
Food: 8,000
Utilities: 2,000 (only if long term lease)
Transportation: 1,000 (includes some taxi as well as pub trans - may be high)
Spanish Classes: 1,500 (2 people twice a week, 130 pesos hour, 1.5 hours per class)
Kid's School: 1,200 (this is based on the 3 1/2 year old only?
Have a friend with a 3 1/2 year old who pays this much, could be less)
Total: 30,700
Notice that you may pay quite a bit more for a temporary apartment, but the extra expenses mentioned for long-term leases being removed by leasing short-term, will probably end up making the costs at least close to a wash, and when you factor in furnishing a long-term apartment, you are way ahead renting short term if you're only going to be here two years.
At the moment, it can be done at 50K total income per month, and still have roughly 20K leftover, if my prices are reasonably correct. I have a household with my wife and three girls (19, 17 and 14). We live in Recoleta, which can be more expensive than Palermo (depending on exactly where you live and what you rent, etc.). But I've based my numbers loosely on my per-person costs, hopefully reasonably adjusted for young 'uns.
But believe it or not, at the moment, that 20K isn't as big a margin as it seems. With inflation at around 30% (to be charitable imo), by the time you get here, your expenses will be around 36K, another 6 months they will have reached 40K or so. That's what I consider to be the best case scenario over the next year (although I'd love to be surprised). However, if you can get more value for your GBP than the official rate (i.e., don't depend at all on ATMs) then you will be much better off and can handle the inflation.
It all depends on whether the government allows the black market rate to remain the same or go even higher (or, if they let the Peso move toward its real value). At the beginning of the year, the Dollar hit a black market rate of 15 to 1 and then the government arrested a bunch of players in the market, took one bank's license to operate in Argentina and continues to harass the black market changers. The rate went down to 12 to 1 and has only this month gotten up to something more reasonable - who knows how long it will last.
Your best bet is probably temporary leases, but that could mean you are moving every so often, depending on how long you can rent there for. With great luck you may not have to move or only move once, with a little luck 2-3 times, without luck who knows.
Most people will probably groan at my long post, but if I were moving here I'd sure want as much info as I could get on the most important subjects of living here comfortably - current cost of living, understanding the inflation, the near requirement to deal with inflation on the black market, and how rentals work.
But you guys should be able to do it easily if you manage it correctly.
