Moving A Family To Buenos Aires?

[delancepants]

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies, somehow I only just saw them, the email alerts mustn't be set up right!!

India has the worst air quality in the world so anywhere is an improvement after here! I didn't have asthma before I moved to Kolkata (they changed the name because Calcutta was the name the British used and Kolkata is a more accurate reflection of the way it's pronounced in the local language Bengali), it only appeared since moving here (like most of the other expats I know) so I'm hoping that moving somewhere cleaner (as opposed to the cleanest) will suffice. Hopefully I won't have to move to some really remote place to achieve healthy lungs!!

It's not our only reason to move but the most pressing one. Kolkata is not a great place for expats. The expat community is very small and most don't last long. I'm becoming a veteran now after 3.5years!

Can anyone give me advice on international schools? ie are they any good? One thing I've learned here in Kolkata is that just because it has the name 'international school' doesn't mean anything at all! It doesn't even mean they offer international curriculums!

Also I'm wondering about cost of living. I did a bit of reading and discovered that the inflation rate is really high, so I'm just wondering if the figures I've found are accurate. Can anyone tell me if these figures on numbeo look accurate? http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=Argentina&city=Buenos+Aires We are not interested in spending a lot of money, a 60square metre 2 bed apartment would be fine for us, although we want to make sure that we're safe (and a pool would be really nice for the kids if we can afford it, but not necessary). The other thing is that we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables (a lot!) and gluten free products, so the cost of our diets is usually expensive wherever we go. Any input would be most welcome.

Thanks, Lia

 

[Rich One]

For Food and home products check the supermarket web prices like Coto, Disco, Vea , Jumbo, Carrefour.etc

http://www.coto.com.ar/

For housing go to Airbnb,com as a first approach.

https://es.airbnb.co...1X1lhoCJG_w_wcB

That's all there is to it , depending on the area you choose to live. Schooling sure some expats have data

 

[mmoon]

There are quite a few legitimately excellent international schools in BA. I can highly recommend Belgrano Day School. If you search this site, you will find lots of other feedback. The neighborhood of Belgrano is quite safe with lots of families.

 

[ElQueso]

There are other things to consider if you're moving here. Things like how to rent long term, which are much cheaper than the short-term link that Rich One linked to. Also, it can be difficult to find a good temporary apartment for more than a few months at a time for various reasons, and if things pick up here in the near future, I would expect that the temporary rental market will pick up quite a bit. When I first came in 2006, it was very tough to find a temporary rental for more than a month because they were booked well in advance, with openings of a week or two here and there. Tourists were flocking to Argentina back then, but it has slowed somewhat in the last couple of years because of the politics and the economy.

Although, you will almost certainly have to start out in a short-term lease. You have to secure a property guarantee to rent long term here (but it may be possible to put a lot of money up front in very few cases, as a deposit), which means you have to know someone well enough that they will put their property in jeopardy to guarantee your rental, or pay them in cash to put it up, but very few people will do such a thing without knowing you or coming from a good reference from someone else who knows you. Laws here favor renters in terms of being able to stay in an apartment without paying rent and it takes a long, drawn out legal process to get someone out who isn't paying - particularly if they have children.

Getting money from the outside here is very difficult at the moment, although it may relax with the new president when he assumes office on December 10th, but I wouldn't count on it happening fast for various political reasons. You never know. Maybe by the time you move here things will be better related to the currency controls that are currently in place.

If you are planning to work here for your income, you really need residency to get any kind of (relatively) decent job, otherwise you are stuck with jobs that are under the table and don't pay well at all. You can stay here undocumented for the most part, but it makes it more difficult to do other things, like open up a bank account or find work.

International schools (at least the good ones) will probably cost as much as or more than the rent on a relatively modest, yet decent, apartment per month.

Inflation has been at least 30% annually for the last couple of years. In some things more, in some things less. We're hoping the new president will be able to straighten things out, but again, you never know.

There's probably a few more things, but these are the big ones to me, that affect me nearly every day (except I do have residency )

 

[Alicia karr]

Numbeo website is great and I find their estimates of the cost of living very accurate.
In my opinion there is not as much crime as there was a year or two ago. But crime here is not usually life threatening, but more what we would call "petty" crime in the states . Unless you're talking about the price gouging that goes on here...

 

[delancepants]

Thanks for the advice re temporary accomodation, this is the kind of really useful stuff you often only get from residents, I appreciate it. And I'll check out Belgrano too.

Re prices, it's a huge job to go through item by item to estimate monthly food costs....can anyone give me a ballpark figure for a single person and then I can estimate from there?

And what about costs of international schools? I can't seem to find prices online and goodness knows if they will answer my emails, so if anyone can give me an idea of school fees that would be great.

Thanks

 

[mmoon]

Belgrano Day School is very responsive and nearly all of their staff are fluent in English. Not sure who their current Head of Admissions is, but that's who you want to connect with there. Most students are Argentines, but there are quite a few foreigners as well from all over the world.

 

[garryl]

Were you still drunk from last night when you posted that?

I am always a little drunk, thank you. Have you been to Calcutta ? It's a sh***t hole and I am not exaggerating. BsAs is a freaking paradise relatively speaking.

 

[garryl]

There are other things to consider if you're moving here. Things like how to rent long term, which are much cheaper than the short-term link that Rich One linked to. Also, it can be difficult to find a good temporary apartment for more than a few months at a time for various reasons, and if things pick up here in the near future, I would expect that the temporary rental market will pick up quite a bit.

Agreed.

 

[delancepants]

Thanks Garryl, if BA is a paradise compared to Kolkata then I'm sure we'd be happy there!!

I'm trying to get my head around the accommodation issue... Do I understand correctly - if we want to get a longer term rental (essential as we have kids of course) we will have to put a lot of money up front? (can you give me an idea of how much? are we talking a one year lease and we have to pay the full rent up front?)

And if we don't pay cash up front we won't get anything longer than 1 month? But how do we do that if it's hard to get money into the country?! Bring it in the suitcase or something?!

Can anyone offer anymore help on the cost of groceries please? At this stage it's really a case of trying to tie down the costs so that we can see if it's possible for us to live comfortably there, but apart from numbeo I'm finding it hard to get up to date info (and that seems to be so important due to the inflation). Numbeo only gives costs per grocery item but really i need a rough idea of the total monthly cost...