Apartment buying experiences
Hi everybody,
I started this thread to share some experiences I am going to make during the process of buying an Apartment in Buenos Aires. It will be (from my side) a loose collection of observations, caveats, funny things, whatever comes around. Hopefully with some sort of happy end.
What I don't want is 2 things:
- starting a flame war on the question if buying property here is the best possible investment on the planet or outright loco. This subject has bees discussed ad nauseam, and I know all the pro's and con's. The truth, as usual is somewhere in the middle, and I made a decision based on the information I got.
- starting a flame war if it is a good idea to avail oneself of the services of apartmentsba aka Saint. I also know the pro's and con's of that, and the baseline came out in a discussion with Jackson a few days ago, where he said he would not need such a service, he could take care of things himself - and I countered, that for him, "things would be away 5 minutes and a A$R 5 cab ride, while for me it's a U$S 1500 plane ticket. We agreed that every business activity involves expenses in some ways, and this may just be one of them.
So, please refrain from calling me any names because of these 2 items - any other comments are more than welcome.
What am I looking for?
I want an apartment for 2 purposes: use it myself while I am in Buenos Aires (which is about twice a year, 2 weeks each time) have it used by some friends / business partners, and rent it out the rest of the time. Sizewise, I look for about 70 to 80 square meters, 2 bedrooms, living / dining room, if possible 2 bathrooms. Location, I concentrate on a ring shaped area around Recoleta, limited on the south by 9 de Julio, west by Córdoba, northeast Juan B. Justo. That is large parts of Barrios Norte, Palermo and Recoleta. And I want a high floor, with a lot of light and away from the street noise.
Neither real estate nor investing in Argentina is new for me - I own residential and commercial property in Europe, and I have been doing business in Argentina for a couple of years, including a substantial investment. It is, however, my first involvement with residential real estate in this country.
I made the decision some time in February or March this year, after doing some figures and seeing that a reasonable amount of $$$ was available, and remembering that walking in Bs. As. I sometimes spent more time staring up at the "for sale" signs than watching the beauties on the street. I retained Apartmentsba for their basic consulting package (which at the beginning consists mainly of them emailing you a couple of offers per week that they filtered out of the tons of ads in the local papers and realtor's offers, and think might match your profile.
And I decided to dedicate a fair amount of time during this visit to my search.
El Alemán
Legal matters, and some more
First, thanks for the encouragement that came through posts and pm's. I appreciate it.
Palermo is in my search pattern, however not the area way out at the hippodromo. The limit is more or less a 10 min / 10 peso cab ride from the center. And, at this time, I am not looking into new construction.
The "Argentinean representative" issue has been resolved (thanks, Saint! You can buy property as a foreigner, you just need an Argentinean citizen / company thereafter who will take responsibility for paying your property taxes. This service can be provided by a good property management company, in my case it is easy, I own an Argentinean S. R. L. (=LLC) who could do this.
I saw my Lawyer a couple of days ago, and went through the whole buying process with him. He more or less confirmed everything I read on the apartmentsba web site, with a few addendums concerning his own services. Whoever is interested in buying property down here, Saint's web side is mandatory reading.
El Alemán