Expats not happy, why stay?

[soulskier]

Again - I did point out a little bit about the market reality of Manhattan which is different from anywhere else in the US. The vast majority of buildings require that the buyer have 40-50% of the asking price up front (20/25% down payment and another 20/25% in liquid assets) in order to be approved by a co-op board. So yes, you're not running into a high range of default and foreclosure.

And people - while the prices have dropped in Manhattan since 2007 (although they have been on the rise again for the last 6 months)- the AVERAGE PRICE for an apt is $1.4 million (down from a high of 1.7 million). So yeah, it's not exactly a buyer's paradise

Regardless of the 50% needed up front to be in a Co-Op apartment building, I am still sticking to my prediction. People, including New Yorker's in Manhattan live well outside their means. Sooner or later, when there is no credit left to tap into, the dominoes will fall.

Taking the average of $1.4 million, that would mean buyers would have a $1 million mortgage, which is a sizeable payment to make every month.

I also wonder if those liquid assets that where shown at time of approval need to be verified once a buyer moves in?

 

[laureltp]

I think the thing that many people forgot is that there are phases of cultural shock, and it can take anywhere from months to sometimes years to adjust to a place depending on the person. I myself am not a very adjustable person, it takes me a while to get used to change, but in the end I usually do okay.

But, as a summary, culture shock goes something like this. First you arrive, everything is new, fun, and exciting. Then you stay around a while and you start to go through a stage of depression and anxiety over the cultural differences and the difficulty in adjusting to another culture. At this stage people can tend to over idealize the country they came from and they may start to disagree strongly with the values of their new nation and start to dislike the people and the place. It's a perfectly normal phase.

Luckily, if you can move on from that stage, the final part is adapting and living a normal life in your new country, whether it is Argentina or another country, these stages of culture shock are all the same.

I believe that many of the flusterations that people feel could be caused by the middle stage of culture shock where everything seems much worse than it really is. Not that Argentina doesn't have its problems, but let's give people a break here. You can't just uproot from one entirely different set of social rules, a different culture, a different language and expect to be perfectly happy about it and never complain.

 

[soulskier]

I think the thing that many people forgot is that there are phases of cultural shock, and it can take anywhere from months to sometimes years to adjust to a place depending on the person. I myself am not a very adjustable person, it takes me a while to get used to change, but in the end I usually do okay.

But, as a summary, culture shock goes something like this. First you arrive, everything is new, fun, and exciting. Then you stay around a while and you start to go through a stage of depression and anxiety over the cultural differences and the difficulty in adjusting to another culture. At this stage people can tend to over idealize the country they came from and they may start to disagree strongly with the values of their new nation and start to dislike the people and the place. It's a perfectly normal phase.

Luckily, if you can move on from that stage, the final part is adapting and living a normal life in your new country, whether it is Argentina or another country, these stages of culture shock are all the same.

I believe that many of the flusterations that people feel could be caused by the middle stage of culture shock where everything seems much worse than it really is. Not that Argentina doesn't have its problems, but let's give people a break here. You can't just uproot from one entirely different set of social rules, a different culture, a different language and expect to be perfectly happy about it and never complain.

Really well stated, bien hecho!

 

[ssr]

Regardless of the 50% needed up front to be in a Co-Op apartment building, I am still sticking to my prediction. People, including New Yorker's in Manhattan live well outside their means. Sooner or later, when there is no credit left to tap into, the dominoes will fall.

Taking the average of $1.4 million, that would mean buyers would have a $1 million mortgage, which is a sizeable payment to make every month.

I also wonder if those liquid assets that where shown at time of approval need to be verified once a buyer moves in?

I think you're trying to make some point about Americans living beyond their means and not really acknowledging the reality of Manhattan real estate. There are loads of people throughout the world that would love to snap up a piece of Manhattan. A few Americans overspending and going into foreclosure is not going to bring property prices crashing down in Manhattan. In suburban Arizona, sure, but not in Manhattan. The demand is just too ridiculous and the supply extremely limited.

 

[Johnno]

This sort of thread is enormously helpful for me - I will be coming down for two weeks in July but am planning on making the move to BA permanently in December/January. Do not know exactly what I will do - but have one or two contacts and looks like getting some English teaching work straight off will not be too hard. I am at a stage in my life where I need/want change - when I was still teaching English full time I lived and worked in 5 countries in 5 years - one straight after the other - and I think a lot of what has been written above makes perfect sense...

How do I think I will go down there ? I have no idea I guess in July I get my first taste of the place - and then when I come down again I will find out

I guess I will try to come down with my eyes wide open and treat it as the adventure and challenge I know it will be - but life is too short NOT to do these things I think You are a long time dead so CARPE DIEM

I should spend more time reading and browsing this forum - some really useful and helpful things come up all the time

John.

 

[Alzinho]

life is too short NOT to do these things I think You are a long time dead so CARPE DIEM

Hellelujah!

 

[soulskier]

I think you're trying to make some point about Americans living beyond their means and not really acknowledging the reality of Manhattan real estate. There are loads of people throughout the world that would love to snap up a piece of Manhattan. A few Americans overspending and going into foreclosure is not going to bring property prices crashing down in Manhattan. In suburban Arizona, sure, but not in Manhattan. The demand is just too ridiculous and the supply extremely limited.

A few Americans overspending and going into foreclosure? It is my understand that is a lot more than a few.

Perhaps I have misjudged the demand for sacred Manhattan real estate. But I still have a hard time believing that as credit because more difficult to obtain, that there won't be some negative affect on Big Apple Real Estate prices.

 

[simon.richards]

Why do people have the same expectations of BA as they do of the USA? (And yes it does seem most of the moaners come from the USA). The whingers must surely realise most people use this site to find things out about the city and will therefore be quite new and excited, and to complain so much is really not neccessary and just dampens people's spirits.
I think the trick is just not to have the same expectations as we do in NY, London, etc remember you are more or less in a poor country.
You've got a choice, your glass is half full or half empty... and over here the glass in question should by rights be full of malbec.

 

[Lucas]

I think the thing that many people forgot is that there are phases of cultural shock, and it can take anywhere from months to sometimes years to adjust to a place depending on the person. I myself am not a very adjustable person, it takes me a while to get used to change, but in the end I usually do okay.

But, as a summary, culture shock goes something like this. First you arrive, everything is new, fun, and exciting. Then you stay around a while and you start to go through a stage of depression and anxiety over the cultural differences and the difficulty in adjusting to another culture. At this stage people can tend to over idealize the country they came from and they may start to disagree strongly with the values of their new nation and start to dislike the people and the place. It's a perfectly normal phase.

Luckily, if you can move on from that stage, the final part is adapting and living a normal life in your new country, whether it is Argentina or another country, these stages of culture shock are all the same.

I believe that many of the flusterations that people feel could be caused by the middle stage of culture shock where everything seems much worse than it really is. Not that Argentina doesn't have its problems, but let's give people a break here. You can't just uproot from one entirely different set of social rules, a different culture, a different language and expect to be perfectly happy about it and never complain.

I totally agree with this!! It's the same whatever you go and from whatever you come from, there are phases to adapt and some people can adjust to them and some people just can not, depends of the individual, the situation he/she is in and the effort and willing to succeed.

 

[gouchobob]

I think the thing that many people forgot is that there are phases of cultural shock, and it can take anywhere from months to sometimes years to adjust to a place depending on the person. I myself am not a very adjustable person, it takes me a while to get used to change, but in the end I usually do okay.

But, as a summary, culture shock goes something like this. First you arrive, everything is new, fun, and exciting. Then you stay around a while and you start to go through a stage of depression and anxiety over the cultural differences and the difficulty in adjusting to another culture. At this stage people can tend to over idealize the country they came from and they may start to disagree strongly with the values of their new nation and start to dislike the people and the place. It's a perfectly normal phase.

Luckily, if you can move on from that stage, the final part is adapting and living a normal life in your new country, whether it is Argentina or another country, these stages of culture shock are all the same.

I believe that many of the flusterations that people feel could be caused by the middle stage of culture shock where everything seems much worse than it really is. Not that Argentina doesn't have its problems, but let's give people a break here. You can't just uproot from one entirely different set of social rules, a different culture, a different language and expect to be perfectly happy about it and never complain.

I would agree with these comments. The difficulty of making the transition is much harder I think than people realize and the reason probably 80% return home after a year or two in a new country. I think Argentina can be a particularly difficult place to adapt to. Let's face it on the surface the people aren't particularly welcoming, accomplishing daily tasks that were simple back home become arduous here, etc. It's a completely different culture that has both its good points and bad. I commend the people that can make the adaptation but fully understand the majority that can not, and this is where a lot of the complaining comes from you hear on this site.