Badboy's first Apartment buying Experience
I had been wanting to write this post for a few days. This is not a thread meant for the discussion of " to buy or not to buy ", this is just to share my experience, so maybe others who are in the process or thinking about starting the process can have a little base line from which to start, taking into account everyones experience can be different.
I decided about a few months back that I wanted to buy a few apartments, to live and for other purposes. Anyhow, I spread the word through a few porteno friends to let me know if any good opportunities popped up. Well, two came up rather quickly. This post is about the first. I was told by a friend that someone he know was thinking about selling in an apartment building I liked. Well my friend set up a direct meeting between myself and the owner. We talked, his asking price was about what I was willing to pay, in fact it was a little less, considering the apartment was exactly the size, style and design I was looking for. I saw the apartment fully furnished but started haggling based on the unfurnished price. We agreed on the sale price, non furnished. I then inquired about the furniture and technics, His price was a little high ball, I worked him down about 35% from his initial asking price for the furniture. The apartment building is brand new and so was everything inside the apartment. I am a good haggler, but I don't ever like to feel like I took advantage of someone, and therefore, I make sure we are both happy with the sale price, so it is a win win situation. The sale price was mutually acceptable. We decided we would meet in a week to sign a Sena, about 10% of the sale price, and close a month later. I contacted ApartmentsBA that very day, but was told the consultants were out of town and wouldn't be able to get back to me for a week. Well I said fuck that and contacted another firm, I met with the consultant the next day, they explained their 1% fee included legal council and pretty much the consultant would act as an advisor in the whole Argentina real estate buying process. I met with thier lawyer and their escribano, who called the owners and the owners escribano. We all met up a week later, signed the Reserva and put the date for 4 weeks later, with a small clause stating the date was flexible when taking into account the normal delays of doing and getting paperwork.
The first thing I had to do was go to the local police station and get a Constancia de Domicilio, pretty simple process, A police man dropped off the certificate about 3 hours later. Next I had to go to the local AFIP office and get a CDI, again, pretty simple. All I needed was my passport and my Constancia de Domicilio. The charge if I recall was like 20 pesos. A CDI is basically like a tax ID number. That was it, I had to later go to the Banco Frances to open an account, this part was kinda tricky, since the banks generally need you to have a DNI first. But they can waive this requirement under certain circumstances, though I had to meet with the gerente and had to show a plethora of paperwork including the copy of the signed Reserva and a copy of the future Escritura, since they had to verify the reason I wanted an account, since tourists shouldn't really have a need for foreign bank accounts. Once I explained everything and they had all my paperwork, including Passport, CDI, signed Reserva and copy of future Escritura, I was able to open an account rather easily.
Ok so at this point I have all my ducks in a row. Everything has gone rather smoothly, one of the biggest problems was getting the cash portion of the sale price into Argentina, though that can be sidestepped using a few creative methods. Well basically the whole process had it's headaches and the biggest being many Argentine money controls, but I understand money laundering laws and all the government is saying they know money laundering happens they just want their cut. Anyhow, the day of the Escritura, we all met at the central office of El Banco Frances and went into the sala, the owner, his escribano, my escribano, consultant and myself. The process was pretty quick just about 2 hours, the escribano read off all the technicalities of the escritura and we all signed. I was given the keys, we shook hands and wished each other good luck, I payed the escribano his fee, I payed the consultant. The longest part of the process was the actual money transfer. It seems the money was on hold in my account pending the signed escritura, once the escritura was signed, the bank could then fax a copy to the central bank of Argentina and only then were they given permission to transfer the funds into my account, of course they transfered the money into my account in pesos, meaning I had to sell my dollars at a fucked exchange rate 3.06 and then buy them back at an even more fucked exchange rate 3.12, that plus the banks transaction fees meant everyone got a cut, and it also meant I had to bring a few more bills in order to close the deal and cover the discrepency. Not alot but just about 1.5%. The other thing is I didn't get the Escritura, the escribano kept it, he gave me a Constancia that allowed me to change all the utilities to my name, but he will register the Escritura and then within 30 days I will recieve it.
That was about it, not the most difficult process, though, IMHO, too much Central Bank involvement. The escribano fees including tax title and licensing came out to 3.5% , the banks got 1.5% , the consultant recieved 1% , and the 1.5% the bank took had to be payed to the owner in cash. So basically 7% over the closing costs, not bad, but it would have easily been 10% if I would have had to deal with a real estate agency. I am happy with the apartments and pretty happy with the whole process, an all cash transaction can be a headache, considering all the money import restrictions and fees.
Hope this was helpful.
Bad
