If you don´t mind, I´d like to answer this question with a question:
How could anyone who recently bought property, perhaps a galpon and not an apartment, located just outside of CABA, possibly believe otherwise?
I believe a/the default would/will affect real real estate values if it results in anther serious devaluation of the peso and Argentine's are less able than ever to buy dollars which, in almost all cases, have been/still are essential to complete a real estate purchase.
Even if the government doesn't seize dollars in Argentine bank accounts and convert them to pesos, most Argenntines will be hard pressed to acquire enough USD in the future to buy properties. That leaves wealthy Argentine and foreigner buyers.
I don't see "a lot of growth potential" in any real estate markets within Argentina in the near future, certainly not in the next few years. Even if there is a massive devaluation of the peso, I wonder how many foreigners are going to snap up the bargains the way they did in 2001 and the five years that followed.
Few foreigners back then knew little about the crisis (and cared even less). Most were happy to find a great deal and at least two I know of were even happier if they could find a fledgling real estate agent and treat him like their own personal errand boy, paying him as little as possible.
As almost everyone here knows, real estate prices are quoted and paid in dollars, but the price on the escrutura will be expressed in pesos. Even if there is NO dollar inflation, a devaluation of the peso will result in a paper profit that will be taxed at the rate of 15% when the property is sold.
As always, I suggest people buy based on need, not greed. Even if you are "ready" to buy now, I suggest waiting at least three (if not six) months. If, for no other reason, until the threat (or the reality) of the coronavirus has come and (hopefully) passed.
For now, there's noting wrong with continuing to search for a great deal, at least online and even in person, until it gets too dangerous to do so, and that could happen in the next 30 days. If the covid-19 comes to CABA, the best way to minimize thee carnage will be to lock down the city (and it's environs) until the threat has passed.
PS: In my opinion, buying a somewhat isolated but also relatively safe property to sit out the coronaviurs epidemic if/when it sweeps through Argentina would have been a good idea, but it's probably already too late to do that. By the time you could find a property and close the sale, the country could be in a state of panic that would make a default or devaluation seem trivial.
So all that being said, I think this could be the worst time in the past 20 years to buy a property in Argentina unless you find something that is obviously under priced, plan to live in it, and would be (not just feel) relatively safe doing so, and could close on it in the next two weeks.
PS2: In 2006, two weeks to the day after seeing the apartment I bought in Recoleta for the first time, I had the keys in hand, so buying property in Argentina is not "always slow and difficult" (as one member who seems to know everything recently posted).
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