Property Investment

[garryl]

I've been seeing flats since may, 'cause Ive to stay here for a couple of years and don't want to spend so much money on temporary rents. Now I'm paying 4300 pesos all in for a loft in San Telmo and I'm for the time being satisfied.
I'm still looking for a flat to buy in the area but prices and quality are still far from interesting, though prices are beginning to drop.
The main problem here is the mentality of porteños: they think they've kind of goldmine as a property but in fact it's no more than a crap flat with no reforms since the seventies.
So for the time being I'm not using my euros to buy, I'll wait and see the prices fall further.

If you only stay here for couple of years, it is a lot cheaper to rent. and you are only paying 4300 pesos. do you know the cost of buying and selling of a property here ?

let's say if you buy a modest(cheap) apartment at 100k us, that's about 1 m pesos at blue rate, the cost of buying and selling this apartment is at least 160k pesos (maybe more, about 12 % to buy, and 6% to sell), not to mention the BS and trouble and the anger towards your real estate agent and laywer, that's 4 years of the rent you pay, plus you have to pay all the expenses while owning the apartment, and if you are not from here, the repair people will try to screw with you every time, a simple water heater part has to be imported from Italy. To add all it all together, the cost to own(and buy/sell) a modest 100k apartment, is about 5-6 years of the rent you pay.

Does that make any financial sense to you ? It's a pain in the as** to own an apartment, especially for an expat. Do not buy an apartment for the reason of
saving anything, buy only because you like to live here, and you do not care about the cost owning a home here. That's the only reason baby.
And if you still want to buy, I can sell my apartment to you at a discount

This is one of the worst countries for real estate purchase, recently only overseas Argies and expats with Argies spouse are buying.

 

[garryl]

In 2002, we were thinking of remodeling our kitchen in California, but we bought an apartment in the Botánico instead. Now we regret it - that we didn't buy two.

Sorry I beg to differ, in 2002 it was dirt cheap here, if you bought, you can double the value.
But if you bought any small real estate in Southern or Northen Cal Bay area in 2009-2011, you probably doubed the value too.
Botanico is nice, but I would not buy anything at this price.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Sorry I beg to differ, in 2002 it was dirt cheap here, if you bought, you can double the value.
But if you bought any small real estate in Southern or Northen Cal Bay area in 2009-2011, you probably doubed the value too.
Botanico is nice, but I would not buy anything at this price.

The dollar value of the Botánico apartment has more than tripled since we bought it, but that's rather fictitious because we have no interest in selling it. The value of our California house has roughly quadrupled since we bought in 1992. It was far cheaper to get into the Buenos Aires real estate market than it has been in California since about the 1970s.

 

[Alicia karr]

Mariano don't you have to keep moving around because you can only rent short term without the garantia? Or is that not really a problem? I personally would hate to have to keep moving every three months if I lived here all year. It sounds like you have a great place now, but how many lemons did you go through before you found this one? And how long will you be able to stay before they raise your rent by at least 20%?

 

[mariano-BCN]

Hi Garry And Coqueta, yeps u r right....i don't underestimate the costs and hassle of buying property.
I rent this place i like, location: Pasaje Giuffra, San Telmo in a reformed Conventillo, and for a fair price of 4300 pesos a month all in, barely cheap compared to what I was paying before.
I think I stay here for the time being.
The only thing that keeps me thinking about buying property is the eventuality to buy really cheap, using my euros with a seller who needs euros. I would live here not constantly but for sure a large amount of months every year.
A couple of weeks ago a seller dropped the price from 130 to 110 k 'cause she wants to move to Europe. But for me was that not enough.
I'll wait and see.

 

[el_expatriado]

I've been buying properties here since 2005 and haven't lost money yet.

 

[allcraz]

I´ll tell you one thing. If you buy property here, you had better transfer in the money via your bank totally "en blanco" and not exchange dollars for pesos at the blue rate. The day you try to sell it, and you have to request the COTI number (this is esentially a number that you must request from AFIP for authorization to sell a property) a red flag will go up and you could be asked to prove the source of the funds with which you bought the property. If you can't prove that it came in through normal banking channels, then you will either not be able to sell that property and if you do, AFIP will take HUGE amount of it (think 50%) from you as a penalty. Make sure you are WELL assessed when buying property here ESPECIALLY if you are bringing the funds into Argentina from outside of the country.

This is a concern for me. All our savings go to the "future real estate investment fund." We own 2 properties and will eventually want to buy again, but I know that AFIP will want us to prove the funds, and that won't be easy. (We can prove funds for how we bought the properties we now own, but the idea might be to add an additionaly property, not sell one of ours.) Not all our earnings are en blanco. I have warned my husband of this issue and basically his opinion is, "When there are dollars on the table, things get done." Right, but we're not counting on having to have all those EXTRA dollars on the table because of an AFIP penalty. Very curious to know if anyone here has had trouble buying property because of the issue David has brought up here? I have heard of ways to get around it, like saying that you got the money from a benefactor abroad, etc. etc. Anyone know more about this pickle?

Also...if the dollars come from the States, even if you transfer them in through "normal banking channels," don't you still need to prove their source? That's my concern.

 

[Dublin2BuenosAires]

This is a concern for me. All our savings go to the "future real estate investment fund." We own 2 properties and will eventually want to buy again, but I know that AFIP will want us to prove the funds, and that won't be easy. (We can prove funds for how we bought the properties we now own, but the idea might be to add an additionaly property, not sell one of ours.) Not all our earnings are en blanco. I have warned my husband of this issue and basically his opinion is, "When there are dollars on the table, things get done." Right, but we're not counting on having to have all those EXTRA dollars on the table because of an AFIP penalty. Very curious to know if anyone here has had trouble buying property because of the issue David has brought up here? I have heard of ways to get around it, like saying that you got the money from a benefactor abroad, etc. etc. Anyone know more about this pickle?

Also...if the dollars come from the States, even if you transfer them in through "normal banking channels," don't you still need to prove their source? That's my concern.

Get an accountant you can trust, there is always a way. Argentines are nothing if not creative when it comes to beating clumsy govt restrictions.