We moved here in Oct 2000 when the ARG peso was pegged 1 to 1 with the USA dollar. At that time it was more expensive to live here then it was to live in California. The goal was to live in and experience a Latin culture (I have a B.S. in International Business specializing in Latin America), so we didn't move here for a "cheap" place to live but as a "change of life" kind of thing (getting out of the stress of working in the corporate world). The original idea was to live here a few years, then move to Santiago Chile for a few years, then maybe to Spain for a few years, living in Italy would be a dream. However, when the crisis of Dec 2001 hit, and their currency devalued 75%, what used to cost $1 then cost 25 cents. We didn't stay for economic reasons, by the time of the crisis we had really fallen in love with Buenos Aires and Argentina. Of course there are problems here, but there are problems everywhere in the world, no place is perfect. My Argentine friends can't believe anyone would move here from California, they think the whole state is like "BayWatch" on TV. I try and explain to them, "There are lots of nice places to live in the world and Argentina is one of them!" They just shake their heads and think we're crazy. They think if they could just move to the USA (or Spain or Italy or Anywhere) they would be able to easily get a $80,000 a year job.
Moving is a lot of work, and it's expensive, and as I've mentioned we really do love Argentina, both the Latin culture and the amazing geographical beauty and variety of this country. I do see my young Argentine friends struggle to build a career, save for a home, a car, a life with children, so I'm not blind to the economic problems of living here and building a life here. This is a nice place to have a home base and the whole world is a plane trip away, so we're staying.
Regarding the "guarantor" issue, when we moved here 18 years ago we didn't have a "guarantor" and we ended giving the owner 6 month's rent "deposit" to act as the insurance policy. Our realtor had us a go to lawyer and setup a legal contract that the 2nd year of the lease our rent would be decreased each month to whittle away at the large deposit so that by the end of the 2 year lease the deposit was something reasonable like $600 USA (which was returned to us in full). The owner was impressed by my realtor, as this protected both her as the owner (She wouldn't have to come up with a huge deposit amount at the end of the lease to repay us) and it protected our deposit so that we would get back our money.
The Dec 2001 economic meltdown crisis happened during our lease, so by the time our lease was up, we decided to purchase an apartment.
Living in Argentina isn't for everyone, there are a lot of frustrations, but we love it here and don't plan on leaving anytime soon.