Where's a Good Small Town to Ride Out the Storm?

[Ries]

That's if you plan to live there ..? otherwise you just rent the property to a farmer to continue with the current crops, looks all planted with soy..?

My guess is that the rent isnt gonna cover the cost of the land. The people who make money farming, in both Argentina and the USA, inherited the land. You cant make any money paying that much per acre. And people who have 3/4 of a million to spend (the cost of that land and a house) are going to find existing estancias that already have electricity and water. Farming in Argentina is a very rich mans game. Sure, there are little truck farms that have 1 hectare and grow fancy tomatos for restaurants, but soy, corn, sunflower oil, and beef are businesses that take millions to get into, and are almost all on land that has been in a family for generations.

A great book to browse, at, say, El Ateneo when it reopens, is this one- see how the other 1/10 of 1 percent lives.
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/argentina-great-estancias/author/cesar-aira/

 

[EL_TIGRE_de_Tigre]

That's if you plan to live there ..? otherwise you just rent the property to a farmer to continue with the current crops, looks all planted with soy..? You may add a prefab home for week ends..!

You can rent the land, you can use the land, you can build on the land for your own personal or business needs. The bigger question is ... can you develop the land? And to what extent? Can the land be rezoned from farm land to industrial or better yet residential? Or is it currently multi zoned?

Silly me! I keep forgetting this is in Argentina and to develop a parcel of land like this will require a lot of graft and a ton of time. But the entrepreneur in me says that you could put a heck of a lot of housing units there and make an awful lot of money in the process.

 

[Rich One]

My guess is that the rent isnt gonna cover the cost of the land. The people who make money farming, in both Argentina and the USA, inherited the land. You cant make any money paying that much per acre. And people who have 3/4 of a million to spend (the cost of that land and a house) are going to find existing estancias that already have electricity and water. Farming in Argentina is a very rich mans game. Sure, there are little truck farms that have 1 hectare and grow fancy tomatos for restaurants, but soy, corn, sunflower oil, and beef are businesses that take millions to get into, and are almost all on land that has been in a family for generations.

A great book to browse, at, say, El Ateneo when it reopens, is this one- see how the other 1/10 of 1 percent lives.
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/argentina-great-estancias/author/cesar-aira/

How did you find out this land has no Water, Electricity or a house??? Did you contact the Real estate Agent?

 

[Rich One]

You can rent the land, you can use the land, you can build on the land for your own personal or business needs. The bigger question is ... can you develop the land? And to what extent? Can the land be rezoned from farm land to industrial or better yet residential? Or is it currently multi zoned?

Silly me! I keep forgetting this is in Argentina and to develop a parcel of land like this will require a lot of graft and a ton of time. But the entrepreneur in me says that you could put a heck of a lot of housing units there and make an awful lot of money in the process.

I would Imagine that he idea to rezone and develop as residential Must have occurred to more than ONE investor...! being only 168 kmts from the Obelisk..??

 

[on the brink]

How did you find out this land has no Water, Electricity or a house??? Did you contact the Real estate Agent?

I assumed the idea was to live there. There are no buildings or improvements metioned in the listing. Looks like good crop-growing land to me.

Any building left untended there will probably be ransacked in a couple of months. You would not believe the things people steal from vacant country places. For example, among people I personally know: A Belgian couple bought a farm, left the empty house for two months, and when they returned found that the roof had been stolen, and the thieves had started carting away the floor boards. Another couple had everything stolen: clothing, linens, furniture, and all appliances, including the water heaters and the dishwasher. The thieves also cleaned out the barn of all tools and horse harnesses.

 

[EL_TIGRE_de_Tigre]

I assumed the idea was to live there. There are no buildings or improvements metioned in the listing. Looks like good crop-growing land to me.

Any building left untended there will probably be ransacked in a couple of months. You would not believe the things people steal from vacant country places. For example, among people I personally know: A Belgian couple bought a farm, left the empty house for two months, and when they returned found that the roof had been stolen, and the thieves had started carting away the floor boards. Another couple had everything stolen: clothing, linens, furniture, and all appliances, including the water heaters and the dishwasher. The thieves also cleaned out the barn of all tools and horse harnesses.

What does this tell us?

In it's most basic form, when people will steal at this level, they really have very little to almost nothing. And that is a very sad state for such a beautiful country to be in. I am not sure we will see a time when the people of this country at the lower level (I am thinking the bottom 50% ... perhaps as the bottom 75%!) will have a nice standard of living. The country is in perpetual bankruptcy with thieves for elected officials at all levels. This is a tuff one.

And here is where I believe being a minimalist is a huge advantage because a person with few possessions has not so much to be robbed of. Or so it seems to me.

 

[on the brink]

........ being a minimalist is a huge advantage because a person with few possessions has not so much to be robbed of. Or so it seems to me.

Couldn't agree more. My place in Uruguay is furnished with basic stuff, locally available, and inexpensive to replace.

 

[Ries]

You can rent the land, you can use the land, you can build on the land for your own personal or business needs. The bigger question is ... can you develop the land? And to what extent? Can the land be rezoned from farm land to industrial or better yet residential? Or is it currently multi zoned?

Silly me! I keep forgetting this is in Argentina and to develop a parcel of land like this will require a lot of graft and a ton of time. But the entrepreneur in me says that you could put a heck of a lot of housing units there and make an awful lot of money in the process.

This isnt "graft".
This is simple land use policies, which pretty much all countries have.

For instance- I own 32 acres, about 13 hectares, in a small banana republic called "The United States of America".

It is prime farmland, in a very desirable place for farming. It is zoned 1 unit per 40 acres. This is common in the socialist peronist country I live in. This is an intentional planning process that keeps farmland from becoming residential, because, we all need to eat. In my county, in the State of Washington, the county zones where residential development can occur. It requires pesky things like fire department access, sewers, wetland and ecological placements that wont cause the future homes to flood or burn, and it manages density and access to schools.

I could not subdivide my land.
This is a very popular land planning law, where I live, for everybody except people who inherit farmland, and think they are entitled to a quick buck.

In rural Provincia Buenos Aires, the towns are intentionally quite dense, and have defined limits beyond which there is farmland.
This is for the exact same reason as the zoning on my land- to protect prime farmland.

In Argentina, housing is specifically located in places on the coast, for instance, which are not good to farm, or in the rocky hills- hence, the fact that Tandil has single family zoning on small parcels outside of the centro, but smaller towns often dont, if they are right in the middle of the pampas. Close to BA, this changes, mainly due to pressure from big money, but in most of the provincia, there are not many 1 or 3 hectare lots for residential outside of towns. Sometimes, along major rutas, like ruta 3, there are more small lots around towns. But most of the pampas is not developable into millions of small lots, on purpose.

 

[EL_TIGRE_de_Tigre]

This isnt "graft".
This is simple land use policies, which pretty much all countries have.

For instance- I own 32 acres, about 13 hectares, in a small banana republic called "The United States of America".

It is prime farmland, in a very desirable place for farming. It is zoned 1 unit per 40 acres. This is common in the socialist peronist country I live in. This is an intentional planning process that keeps farmland from becoming residential, because, we all need to eat. In my county, in the State of Washington, the county zones where residential development can occur. It requires pesky things like fire department access, sewers, wetland and ecological placements that wont cause the future homes to flood or burn, and it manages density and access to schools.

I could not subdivide my land.
This is a very popular land planning law, where I live, for everybody except people who inherit farmland, and think they are entitled to a quick buck.

In rural Provincia Buenos Aires, the towns are intentionally quite dense, and have defined limits beyond which there is farmland.
This is for the exact same reason as the zoning on my land- to protect prime farmland.

In Argentina, housing is specifically located in places on the coast, for instance, which are not good to farm, or in the rocky hills- hence, the fact that Tandil has single family zoning on small parcels outside of the centro, but smaller towns often dont, if they are right in the middle of the pampas. Close to BA, this changes, mainly due to pressure from big money, but in most of the provincia, there are not many 1 or 3 hectare lots for residential outside of towns. Sometimes, along major rutas, like ruta 3, there are more small lots around towns. But most of the pampas is not developable into millions of small lots, on purpose.

That was a great explanation - Thanks.

 

[gracielle]

While we’re on the subject of local travel, does anybody know if the long distance buses that move out of Retiro are running?.
I wouldn’t mind taking a brake from BA. But I have a feeling that the options for travel are limited. Ditto for train service.

Hi D.B.....Update:

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20 August 2020
The long-distance buses approved the health protocols, but the return to activity has been postponed until October.
This is according to the press director of the Long Distance Transport Business Chamber, Gustavo Gaona.

Página en reconstrucción

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