Been here a month Now

[Spen]

San Francisco 70 year old native here. Still maneuvering Buenos Aires. Getting cas has been an issue. ATMS charge 25%…went to Uraguay on advice to get US dollars there. took a full day, 6am -1am long boat ride. To fly round trip $250…$1500 max I can get from ATMs there. Western Union could not process my debit card. Will take time to get registered here as a legal long term visitor.

Found a nice apartment after a month of Airbnbs. I will post warnings about Airbnb scammers out the here at a later time.

Question on this: apt I’m getting in a month (being prepped for move in. Fresh paint & all…) $1500/month rate for 2 years. Offered one month free if pay year in advance. $3,000 discount if I pay 2 years in advance.
Unsure of what economy for expats will be with new president & gawd help us all if the sick trumpt gets back in. Weighing my investment return on IRA versus pulling out $ 33k…to save 10%… open to comments.

I am a Gay divorced gay male with a personal assistant who speaks Spanish & makes navigating here a lot easier.

Are there expat groups here,? preferably gay males. But i’m Pretty sociable. It’s good to network. Anyway. I’m glad I found this group at least for now.

 

[sts7049]

what kind of rental agreement will you have? formal contract?

i would not prepay anything without that being clear in writing in a rental agreement. and as you may know it's technically not legal to request rent in USD. so those two aspects may clash with each other...

 

[SinPulgas]

In terms of going to Uruguay, if you find that you have to go that route again, the $1500 restriction is probably a limit from your bank in the states. When I used to go there to get cash, I always had to call the bank to raise my limit. In my case, the last time I went, a couple years ago, my bank would raise my withdrawal limit to $5000/day for 48 hours and I had no problem taking that out of the ATMs ($300 at a time).

You should probably talk to Western Union and try to resolve the problem with your debit card. At one point I was having a problem, and they finally told my to delete my WU account and start over. I did that and it worked. You might try that. It's a lot easier to do a transfer than to go to Uruguay.

 

[TimeTraveler]

1500 US dollars a month? Can I ask about some details? Like, what’s the size, number of bedrooms, bathrooms? Location? I’m thinking of renting soon and want to have an idea of what the market is like.

also, for you or anyone else here, has anyone had any luck paying abroad for rentals? meaning finding owners that have an account outide Argentine where you can wire them the dollars. Is this common at all?

 

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

I have paid into an account outside of the country on both occasions that I've rented long term here.
Just tell the letting agent that this is what you want to do.

I've also paid in advance to secure a month discount.

 

[Rich One]

I would only consider paying rent in advance on a 3 month contract. On a long term contract if the contract needs to be rescinded/terminated for whatever reason will you get the balance back soon..?

 

[Rich One]

In terms of going to Uruguay, if you find that you have to go that route again, the $1500 restriction is probably a limit from your bank in the states. When I used to go there to get cash, I always had to call the bank to raise my limit. In my case, the last time I went, a couple years ago, my bank would raise my withdrawal limit to $5000/day for 48 hours and I had no problem taking that out of the ATMs ($300 at a time).

You should probably talk to Western Union and try to resolve the problem with your debit card. At one point I was having a problem, and they finally told my to delete my WU account and start over. I did that and it worked. You might try that. It's a lot easier to do a transfer than to go to Uruguay.

Used to go to Colonia for years , the limit for extractions was not my CC, but the $300 dollar limit with a commision of $5 dollars then from the Uru banks . Quite a tedious task to go from bank to bank to come back with a few thousand bucks cash.

 

[SinPulgas]

Used to go to Colonia for years , the limit for extractions was not my CC, but the $300 dollar limit with a commision of $5 dollars then from the Uru banks . Quite a tedious task to go from bank to bank to come back with a few thousand bucks cash.

It was a tedious task. The last time I had to go there was in 2019. There were two differences. I could use the same ATM for all the withdrawals, with the only limit being my bank's limit. The other was that the Uruguay bank fee was 9 dollars for withdrawing up to 300 dollars. Add in the my bank's costs (I didn't have Schwab), and the cost of Buquebus, and it wasn't cheap. Colonia's nice, but I'd like to have a better reason to go there.

 

[tilkaratnedil]

$1500/month is a lot, of course it depends on quality but you can stay in very very nice 1bd places on airbnb for a month for that price. If they are rated 4.8/4.9+ you shouldn't have too many problems. I understand though that you've found a nice place and want to stick with it, but i would advise against paying anything up front for reasons mentioned above. I would personally stick with airbnb for the flexibility (you like BA now but who knows what happens in the future) and the recourse in case of issues

 

[sergio]

San Francisco 70 year old native here. Still maneuvering Buenos Aires. Getting cas has been an issue. ATMS charge 25%…went to Uraguay on advice to get US dollars there. took a full day, 6am -1am long boat ride. To fly round trip $250…$1500 max I can get from ATMs there. Western Union could not process my debit card. Will take time to get registered here as a legal long term visitor.

Found a nice apartment after a month of Airbnbs. I will post warnings about Airbnb scammers out the here at a later time.

Question on this: apt I’m getting in a month (being prepped for move in. Fresh paint & all…) $1500/month rate for 2 years. Offered one month free if pay year in advance. $3,000 discount if I pay 2 years in advance.
Unsure of what economy for expats will be with new president & gawd help us all if the sick trumpt gets back in. Weighing my investment return on IRA versus pulling out $ 33k…to save 10%… open to comments.

I am a Gay divorced gay male with a personal assistant who speaks Spanish & makes navigating here a lot easier.

Are there expat groups here,? preferably gay males. But i’m Pretty sociable. It’s good to network. Anyway. I’m glad I found this group at least for now.

USD $1,500 a month! I thought BA was supposed to be cheap!