Buying Property in Argentina

You’re loving the Tango life, made some good friends in the Tango Lounge, have fallen in love with the beautiful city of Buenos Aires, and now you’re ready to commit to Buenos Aires for the long term? Buying a property here is a tricky process, especially moving money from abroad to Argentina (you have to use an underground network of money movers). Due to the long-term economic crisis, you can get a great deal on a property, but at the same time it’s very difficult to sell as there aren’t many buyers. Buying property in BA is a long term lifestyle choice, and generally not for making a financial investment.

Key Resources

Max is an experienced real estate agent helping foreigners buy/sell properties and can provide you with full service assistance: https://www.mgotz.com/foreigners-expat assistance.

A Tango Lounge member, wrote this excellent summary based on his recent experiences of buying a property:

Advantages to buying property in Argentina: Buenos Aires is an amazing city with a great quality of life if you derive your income from abroad. Generally there are not a lot of restrictions about renting it out short term while you are away, and there are many ways to do so, including AirBnB. Once you own a property in Argentina, you will have an asset with no mortgage, typically very low maintenance, utility fees, and property taxes. Unlike places in the U.S. you are not likely to be foreclosed upon by failure to pay taxes etc.

Disadvantages to buying property in Argentina: If you don’t keep up on your taxes they will withhold it from you before you can sell it. If you rent it out to someone, it can be very difficult to get the tenant out if they have been there for more than 90 days. This is why it’s customary for landlords to demand a “guarantia” which is usually a lien to some other property. Real estate is known to be a non-liquid asset but it’s even more so in Argentina due to the lack of local buyers, the purchase process, and the lack of transparency in the market (online tools do not show the purchase price history). If you buy into an apartment or building you don’t like, you will be stuck with it.

Finding properties: A good resource is ZonaProp – you can filter on size, neighborhood, age of property, number of rooms or bedrooms, and you can save the filters. You can also find information about the seller’s agent. In Buenos Aires, real estate brokers and agents do not have access to a digital lock box as is the norm in the USA. Instead, the seller’s agent has to be there to show you the property. This means, in most cases, you can just arrange directly with the seller’s agent by contacting them via the messaging feature. Give them your WhatsApp number so they can reply outside ZonaProp. It’s best to meet the seller’s agent with your buyer’s agent, but sometimes that can be difficult to schedule so you do have the option of meeting them directly.

The purchasing process: Properties for sale are denominated in U.S. dollars, and must be paid in cash because there are no mortgages available due to inflation of about 100% per year. But, generally it’s not possible to wire funds directly, and there is no such thing as escrow in Argentina. If the seller has an overseas account denominated in Dollars, Euros, or other hard currencies, it can be straightforward to wire the funds to them directly, but you have to trust them not to run off with the money. Often, the sellers do not have an overseas account, and you will need to deliver the entire purchase price in USD cash at closing to the Escribano’s office.

Because of the legal limit of bringing USD $10k cash into Argentina with you, you’ll likely have to use a black market finance company. Their transfer fees are typically 5% or higher, and it’s important to find a good money transfer company because if there are delays you may not be able to extend your purchase window and you can lose your deposit. One thing to look out for is verbiage in the contract about what happens to the funds, commissions, etc if the purchase does not complete, because the wording of the contract may give the commissions to the agents even if the deal falls through.

A word of caution: even if your real estate agent refers you to the finance company, it is not their responsibility if the money does not come through on time or ever. Doing adequate due diligence is important.

Suggest an update to this page!

The TangoVida Guide is community-written. Submit your feedback below to help improve it. We appreciate your help.

2 + 11 =