Finding a great 3 month rental apartment

[earlyretirement]

I also wanted to point out that I started out with 1 Airbnb in Buenos Aires. When that did good. I got another, then another then another.. I cashed out my 401K, sold my house and ALL assets and went all in on Buenos Aires and Argentina. True I did start with a good nest egg to get started but I wouldn't touch the cash and would just keep taking the cash and buying more real estate with it in Buenos Aires.

But many of my clients didn't have much. They only had less than $100,000 to invest. But then they too started with one. And then they would take the $$$$ and keep rolling it over into new apartments. People don't realize just how many foreigners made a fortune in Buenos Aires real estate buying after the last crash. They rented and made a GREAT ROI and then they cashed out at the top when real estate prices were really high. Real estate prices have been falling many years in a row. But it's done falling or close to it.

People talk sh*t about Argentina all the time. Say how it's hopeless and how no money can be made there. That is totally not true. Lots of people are making money there. ALL my employees that purchased real estate there are living off that income now. They ALL tell me they wouldn't be able to survive without their investment property.

This isn't rocket science. People do the math. Look how much tourism there is each year to include foreigners coming here for learning/language programs or students here. Look at tourists, corporate travel, cosmetic surgery or medical tourism. Then add into the mix locals that can NOT find a long-term rental. Now take the total # of hotel rooms in Buenos Aires.

It's not too difficult if you are good with numbers. Do your due diligence. It's not difficult to make lots of money on real estate in Buenos Aires. Especially when you're able to buy it at the bottom like it is right now. It's dirt cheap in inflation adjusted dollars - https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Like I said before, people are going to be kicking themselves in the ass that didn't buy when prices are so crazy cheap. You can buy "pozo" projects now where you just put $X down and pay over the next 2-3 years.

 

[JeffR]

For context, in my day-job I work as a housing policy planner in the US, so that definitely influences my feelings. The short version:

I don't think short-term rentals are bad in every context -- I've known people who rented out their guest room as a supplement to their farming income in areas that were rural enough that they probably couldn't support a full hotel. If that's all AirBnB were, I wouldn't mind it as much. But as many cities have seen, the system it creates encourages property owners to only rent full apartments through AirBnB rather than taking on the legal obligations and risks of renting-long term or of operating a hotel. This can create or exacerbate housing scarcity for long-term renters, and potentially push people into unstable housing situations.

Additionally, there's little oversight in the safety of the spaces that are rented through AirBnB. Renting an AirBnB in Medellin once we arrived at a building that was still very much under construction (like, you could have fallen six stories through the middle of the building from the hallway), and I've also stayed at AirBnBs in the US that didn't have basic safety features like second points of egress in case of fire or smoke/carbon monoxide detectors that would be required in long-term rentals or hotels. Others have reported being illegally filmed by their hosts, or having hosts come in to sexually assault them.

I use AirBnB, as there is an unmet need in the market in most places for hotels that have things like kitchen or laundry access for long-term travel. But I hate that AirBnB is often the only option for meeting that need.

Very well said! I'm more and more surprised that municipalities everywhere don't require Airbnbs to be licensed and inspected regularly, rather they attempting to ban them.

 

[earlyretirement]

Very well said! I'm more and more surprised that municipalities everywhere don't require Airbnbs to be licensed and inspected regularly, rather they attempting to ban them.

I did that with our own portfolio of hundreds of properties. I tried to get Buenos Aires way back in the mid 2000's thinking about this. At the time they wanted to ban short-term rentals. They were stupid. I explained to them calmly that tourism was going to boom. Remember prior to the crash it was $1: 1 peso for 11 years. So Argentina was VERY expensive. NO ONE came here. Only maybe some corporate travel. But no one else. Back then the euro was weaker than the dollar so it was cheaper to go to Paris than come to BA. No one came here.

After the crash I knew it would boom. It went from being one of the most expensive countries to the one of THE cheapest literally overnight. I crunched the numbers and could figure out tourism would boom. The problem?

There weren't enough hotel rooms!! And they STILL aren't enough hotel rooms. So the city could never ban it. But I also advocated common sense safety approaches and standards like fire extinguishers, flashlights, candles for when electricity goes off. Detailed guidebooks that explain what to do in the event of an emergency. I even had 24/7 concierges in case they needed help.

They never implemented any of those things. I really think it's going to go full circle now and You will have intelligent investors that just create amazing buildings of apartments that have the fastest speed Internet and set up redundancies with other companies so if one goes out you have another internet. Dependability. Reliability. Really comfortable, luxurious mattresses (locals use cheap junk). Comfortable work desks and ergonomic chairs. Plug and play wide monitors to dock into. Maybe printers as well.

Brand these as "hotels" even though they are apartments so foreigners can get IVA exemption. Sure, start on Airbnb but fairly quickly you could brand your own building to become known as THE place to stay when you're in Buenos Aires and you need comfortable beds, FAST and always on Wifi, great staff, always clean, great work desks with HUGE monitors you can connect your laptops to.

Also, for those of you that crave the "community" of an ex-pat community you may or may not want that but there would be a social happy hour every evening on the roof top terrace by the pool. I think it makes sense to do many types of buildings like these vs. traditional Airbnbs. The place could charge great rates as they aren't. paying Airbnb their usury 10% from guests and 3% to owners. So right off a bat a 13% savings.

And what if you had someone that had a great reputation developing the building? Maybe you wouldn't want to just rent. Maybe you'd want to buy a place like this and be an OWNER and never rent again. Or use it but when you're not there you make $$$$$ renting it out.

Everything has electronic locks, video doorbells so no one can say they rented it when they didn't. All streamlined. All beautiful. No BS.

Sounds good to me. What about you?

 

[Caribbean Cool]

I did that with our own portfolio of hundreds of properties. I tried to get Buenos Aires way back in the mid 2000's thinking about this. At the time they wanted to ban short-term rentals. They were stupid. I explained to them calmly that tourism was going to boom. Remember prior to the crash it was $1: 1 peso for 11 years. So Argentina was VERY expensive. NO ONE came here. Only maybe some corporate travel. But no one else. Back then the euro was weaker than the dollar so it was cheaper to go to Paris than come to BA. No one came here.

After the crash I knew it would boom. It went from being one of the most expensive countries to the one of THE cheapest literally overnight. I crunched the numbers and could figure out tourism would boom. The problem?

There weren't enough hotel rooms!! And they STILL aren't enough hotel rooms. So the city could never ban it. But I also advocated common sense safety approaches and standards like fire extinguishers, flashlights, candles for when electricity goes off. Detailed guidebooks that explain what to do in the event of an emergency. I even had 24/7 concierges in case they needed help.

They never implemented any of those things. I really think it's going to go full circle now and You will have intelligent investors that just create amazing buildings of apartments that have the fastest speed Internet and set up redundancies with other companies so if one goes out you have another internet. Dependability. Reliability. Really comfortable, luxurious mattresses (locals use cheap junk). Comfortable work desks and ergonomic chairs. Plug and play wide monitors to dock into. Maybe printers as well.

Brand these as "hotels" even though they are apartments so foreigners can get IVA exemption. Sure, start on Airbnb but fairly quickly you could brand your own building to become known as THE place to stay when you're in Buenos Aires and you need comfortable beds, FAST and always on Wifi, great staff, always clean, great work desks with HUGE monitors you can connect your laptops to.

Also, for those of you that crave the "community" of an ex-pat community you may or may not want that but there would be a social happy hour every evening on the roof top terrace by the pool. I think it makes sense to do many types of buildings like these vs. traditional Airbnbs. The place could charge great rates as they aren't. paying Airbnb their usury 10% from guests and 3% to owners. So right off a bat a 13% savings.

And what if you had someone that had a great reputation developing the building? Maybe you wouldn't want to just rent. Maybe you'd want to buy a place like this and be an OWNER and never rent again. Or use it but when you're not there you make $$$$$ renting it out.

Everything has electronic locks, video doorbells so no one can say they rented it when they didn't. All streamlined. All beautiful. No BS.

Sounds good to me. What about you?

Airbnb has allowed those of us on more limited budgets to enjoy world travel. Sometimes staying for a month and sometimes much longer. So I say leave it alone, Airbnb, and let's keep moving!

 

[earlyretirement]

Airbnb has allowed those of us on more limited budgets to enjoy world travel. Sometimes staying for a month and sometimes much longer. So I say leave it alone, Airbnb, and let's keep moving!

Airbnb is truly the best. ALL the other websites suck. For both renters and owners. I know them all and Airbnb works flawlessly. Usually the people that complain the most about them are the ones that use it the most. LOL.

 

[julia_en_ruta]

Very well said! I'm more and more surprised that municipalities everywhere don't require Airbnbs to be licensed and inspected regularly, rather they attempting to ban them.

I could get behind the inspection piece, but I will say it can be really hard ($$$, which lots of cities don't have to spare) for cities to be able to monitor that short term rentals in their jurisdiction are all licensed. It's a lot of listings to go through, even though there are services to do that, and I've certainly stayed at short-term rentals that lied about their location.

 

[earlyretirement]

I could get behind the inspection piece, but I will say it can be really hard ($$$, which lots of cities don't have to spare) for cities to be able to monitor that short term rentals in their jurisdiction are all licensed. It's a lot of listings to go through, even though there are services to do that, and I've certainly stayed at short-term rentals that lied about their location.

Nope this is NOT difficult at all. Argentina said the same thing. People this is VERY easy. And you can even fund the employees for the city with Airbnb or charge a surcharge to cover it.

Argentina doesn't get that making a more regulated short-term rental system is great for everyone. Tax revenues increase, more accountability and insight on tourism, who is using them, etc. It gets local owners actually paying income tax because almost none are. You require a DNI #. There are lots of property managers that just have accounts in the USA and nothing goes through Argentina. I'm not saying that's bad but I can guarantee if Airbnb requests a tax ID # (DNI) and you don't input one they charge 25% more taxes. Mexico does this. If you don't put in a Mexican RFC # they automatically retain more money. I think it's like 10% more that the government automatically takes and puts it into a pile. They do this as many Americans don't have a tax ID # there so they get penalized for not having one.

Argentina can easily do the same. Make a local input a DNI #. If it's American owned, by law you have to have a local tax representative anyway. It's the law. And I can GUARANTEE you that NO accountant will want this responsibility so you figure out some big % that people have to pay if they don't input DNI #. Trust me, things would get figured out very quickly!!

My guess is you'd have 50% to 65% of the Airbnbs that are owned by locals and renting out short-term if they have to input their DNI # they will go back to long term rentals and more into the shadows. The government just needs to know how to structure this and I could help them. I offered the same help back when I owned the largest property management company in Argentina. I wanted the industry regulated because all my clients were paying taxes. I knew right away that we would have a HUGE advantage because we were already paying taxes anyway. But Argentina never wanted to regulate it because my hunch is all the politicians and their families and their friends ALL own real estate and all renting it on Airbnb now. But it would be glorious for all the non-resident foreigners that are already paying taxes. I can promise you they won't care about putting in their DNI #'s on their website. You have to have a common sense approach.

That's why people like me will always hope for regulation because I know it will cause me to get even more business as most of the locals will drop off the face of the Airbnb earth if the government instituted a policy like this. And all the people complaining about Airbnb on this board and saying how it hurts locals, will find themselves with Airbnb's that might be 50% to 75% more expensive. Plus if the government gets serious, you may have to pay 19% IVA plus 2% city taxes. This is added on to tenant end, not owner end. Owner pays 3% commission to Airbnb plus any retention or income taxes that Argentina tells Airbnb to pay it.

You could easily set up inspectors. This is NOT hard. I used to buy and manage hundreds of properties and I'd go and inspect most of them myself with my business partner on a monthly basis to "spot" check them. Salaries are dirt cheap in Argentina!! You could easily hire an inspection division. I could set it up within a week. I'm not joking. Some lawyers are only making like $500 US dollars per MONTH right now. I could easily hire and train an army of employees and inspectors and regulate the Airbnb industry in Argentina within WEEKS.

So no real excuses why this can't be done..

 

[Lanick]

Wife has a 1 bed flat in Collegiales. She had the flat done up recently. In a 24 hr doorman building with a massive pool, ok gym, club room, communal bbq area and a garden as well as a laundry in the building. Flat has a balcony with no buildings blocking the view and the light even tho it’s on the 3rd floor. California kitchen. She was gonna do Airbnb but would be ok with 3 months or so. Let me know if you still or anyone else looking for a flat.

 

[JeffR]

I could get behind the inspection piece, but I will say it can be really hard ($$$, which lots of cities don't have to spare) for cities to be able to monitor that short term rentals in their jurisdiction are all licensed. It's a lot of listings to go through, even though there are services to do that, and I've certainly stayed at short-term rentals that lied about their location.

I think earlyretirement is spot-on with his post above. I hear what you are saying Julia. Yes, governments around the world are strapped for cash but it seems like an annual licensing program could be self-funding. Listing platforms make it easy to see who is doing what, although you won't catch all of them (STRs). Not suggesting they charge a huge fee, but I suspect annual licensing requirements would weed out a fair share of the bad hosts/Airbnbs.

I recently wrapped up a 12-week visit to Argentina and stayed in 8 different Airbnbs, all of which had 5-star ratings or close to it. Three were super-fantastic and deserved a +5 star rating; the hosts were amazingly professional. Three were average, one was below average, and the eighth was a complete disaster (in Belgrano of all places) that we left after one night, whose owner laughably told us we had inconvenienced him by leaving early.

More and more travelers are complaining about Airbnb, presenting an opportunity for cities to regain control from the platform and quite likely improve and increase tourism and housing overall.

 

[earlyretirement]

I think earlyretirement is spot-on with his post above. I hear what you are saying Julia. Yes, governments around the world are strapped for cash but it seems like an annual licensing program could be self-funding. Listing platforms make it easy to see who is doing what, although you won't catch all of them (STRs). Not suggesting they charge a huge fee, but I suspect annual licensing requirements would weed out a fair share of the bad hosts/Airbnbs.

I recently wrapped up a 12-week visit to Argentina and stayed in 8 different Airbnbs, all of which had 5-star ratings or close to it. Three were super-fantastic and deserved a +5 star rating; the hosts were amazingly professional. Three were average, one was below average, and the eighth was a complete disaster (in Belgrano of all places) that we left after one night, whose owner laughably told us we had inconvenienced him by leaving early.

More and more travelers are complaining about Airbnb, presenting an opportunity for cities to regain control from the platform and quite likely improve and increase tourism and housing overall.

Yes JeffR,

Thanks for your kind thoughts. I posted before about things coming full circle. Many places people are going back to taxis instead of Ubers. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE uber and mostly use them but many times now especially at airports, I'm just using taxis. They are newer, cleaner, right there and available with no lines and the kicker..... they are cheaper!

I think with property rentals it's the same thing. I Just experimented with Tik Tok marketing and I'm shocked at the results of how good it is. Making your own Tik Tok page and then linking it to Airbnb. I just got a $9,400 US dollar booking yesterday for a property in Mexico. He said my Tik Tok and within 2 hours of putting it up I got the booking. He came over and inspected it in person and he booked the next day with cash. Totally avoiding Airbnb. He did contact me via Airbnb but then I just routed him to my website and we closed directly. Other owners can do that too.

I think this trend will continue with smart people utilizing technology.