Looking at getting the rentista visa for my wife and son. And not sure about my self as I wont be in the country enough as I work overseas. It 8000 peso per person?per family? Also that border run you have to go right to osorno or just the border? ARCA said they don't deal with people in rio negro cause its a different province. They said we would have to spend time in BA don't get our visa. Which we might have to but neither of our city people is all.
$8000 is the current monthly income level for a family, so it should be enough for both your wife and son. The $8000 requirement went into effect in 2010 after the exchange rate increased from 3 to 1 to 4 to one. The previous level was $2500. Now that the rate is about 15 to 1, another increase in the monthly income requirement is likely (if not long overdue), and I imagine the next level will be at least double if not triple the $8000 level.
If your wife and son have residency they won't have to do any border runs and if you are going to be in Argentina for more than 90 consecutive days you should be able to get one extension (prorroga de permanencia) per year at the office of migraciones in Bariloche.
If I understand correctly (based on a post by Ceviche), if you are from a country whose citizens are required to get a 90 day visa from an Argentine consulate in order to visit Argentina you should NEVER overstay your tourist visa. If not, border runs aren't really necessary and (also if I understand correctly) non-merscour foreigners actually lose any rights they have to stay in Argentina the instant they leave the country.
Keep in mind that even though you work overseas, your wife and son will not get residency just because you send them money from outside Argentina. If you have a "trust account" with a bank that makes monthly deposits (as I suggested in another thread) there shouldn't be any trouble getting the visa for your wife and son. I was granted temporary residency in 2006 based upon monthly income distributions from a trust account.
If you want to pay someone to "help" you get the visas that is your choice, but you should be able to do so without paying high fees to an agency. There is a member of this forum who has accompanied a number of us (to migraciones in Retiro) when we applied for our visas and she charged us about $100 USD each to act as a "friendly interpreter" (not a lawyer or gestor).