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Real Estate News “Real estate summer”: The reasons why, despite the country's crisis, properties continue to be sold - La Nación Propiedades

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“Real estate summer”: The reasons why, despite the country's crisis, properties continue to be sold - La Nación Propiedades

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October 27, 2023
So far this year, 27,352 purchase and sale operations have been carried out; the reasons that explain the sales boom despite the country's adverse political and economic context

Mercedes Soriano

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So far this year, 27,352 purchase and sale operations have been carried out

Against all odds, inflation and political-economic uncertainty at the country level do not stop investments. The real estate market seems to live in a parallel reality and is going through “a summer of sales.” Purchase and sale records do not stop increasing and in September 3,954 purchase and sale operations were registered in the city of Buenos Aires, 25.1% more than in September of last year, according to the Buenos Aires College of Notaries.

“There is a feeling of 'let's write now' , so August and September were like December in other years, in which people want to complete all the pending procedures before the end of the year," said María Magdalena Tato, secretary of the entity. In that sense, she highlighted that this trend took off in August 2023 when 4,135 operations were recorded: “September is the second month that rounds off a false December ,” she adds.

“At the end of the third quarter of the year - if compared with the same period in 2022 - there is an increase of 18.12% with 27,352 deeds in total,” analyzes Germán Gómez Picasso, founder of Reporte Inmobiliario. So far this year, 27,352 purchase and sale operations have been carried out. A number that denotes that the year will hardly close close to 41,000 average deeds, the amount that is handled in a good year in the sector.

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Faced with a feeling of "let's write now", the number of purchase and sale operations increases again in relation to last year.

Meanwhile, the election month accelerates writing and the week before the elections was crucial. “I told some clients that we could sign the operation on Monday the 23rd since the dollar would still be quoted on Friday, but no one wanted to. “Everyone wanted to sign before Sunday, October 22, to avoid a possible bank strike,” says Tato.

“The incredible thing is that with the uncertainty that existed all year - and that continues to accentuate after the first round of elections - the writings never stopped going down ; they grew against 2022 every month,” emphasizes the president of the Jorge De Bártolo School, surprised by the movement of operations in these circumstances. Likewise, he clarifies that the sales were made “in amounts that are still low because there is no credit” but that the fact that “the properties are cheap” helps the completion of the operations.

But the phenomenon that draws attention is that, this week, after the result of the presidential elections, the pace of consultations and reservations did not stop. “Incredibly, the market is still active, we take reservations as if nothing had happened, unlike other times when operations were paralyzed with this type of political development,” describes Leandro Soldati, owner of the real estate company of the same name, who as an example highlights that On the same Monday after the elections he reserved an apartment. “Property is cheap and buyers take into account that the later they decide, the more expensive they will pay,” he adds.

Martín Boquete, director of Toribio Achával, agrees: “This week we continued booking and selling the same and the scheduled signings were completed .” Gabriela Goldszer, director of Ocampo Propiedades, insists that in contexts of uncertainty, brick is a refuge of value. In fact, during the week before the elections, she claims to have received a “flood” of inquiries about one of the projects she markets, Quartier Bajo Belgrano, where ground-floor apartments sell for an average of US$3,000/m². Miguel Ludmer, director of Interwin, believes that what is happening is that there is “renewed activity. 22 years after the corralito, people realized that it is safer to have money in a property than in the bank”.

The reasons for the “reactivation”​

“The current level of real estate prices would appear as the central factor driving operations to which the observed growth could be attributed, even in such an adverse context,” agrees Gómez Picasso. And that justification is what explains why the number of apartments for sale falls. “When you survey the platforms you analyze that there are 30 percent fewer ads than a year ago , there are close to 78,000. In fact, we have almost no appraisals,” details Soledad Balayan, director of Maure Propiedades. In short, in the market there is agreement that Argentina “is given away” in real estate matters . “If one looks at historical data to project where we are, it shows that the prices we have today were only lower in constant currency than now in 2002 and 1989,” Soldati compares.

In numbers, publication prices have risen 0.6% since June, however, in 2023 the accumulated decrease was 1.6%. Specifically, the average sales value of a studio apartment is US$94,401, while a 1-bedroom is US$113,672 and a 2-bedroom is US$158,878 , according to data shared by Leandro Molina, director of Zonaprop.

On the other hand, the representatives affirm that the sales values have hit a floor and that there is a demand that adds to those who have been postponing the decision to move and those who have a flow of pesos that, given the impossibility of buying dollars, allocate it to the properties.

At the same time, Boquete questions that Argentines “are used to looking at the situation to make decisions but the truth is that real estate is a product that transcends the situation : when values are recovered, that is when people remember that “real estate is for life”.

Looking ahead, Daniel Mintzer, founding partner of G&D Developers, points out that to analyze the behavior of the real estate market it is key to understand that “the value of the property measured in dollars is intrinsically related to the perception of the value of the dollar in comparison.” with the weight . ”He maintains that when the dollar tends to be high, property tends to be low and vice versa. Clear examples of this relationship occurred in 1981 and during the Falklands War. In the government of Raúl Alfonsín, property remained at its lowest value, and then increased under Carlos Menem, continuing its rise with the governments of Eduardo Duhalde, Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Fernández and Mauricio Macri. There was a decrease, especially during the pandemic, but in general, property in Argentina tended to increase after each election, says the expert.

For De Bártolo, another reason that could explain the flow of operations is the low profitability of rentals . “What happens today is that perhaps before, someone who inherited an apartment put it up for rent or left it for a child, but today not just any rent covers the cost of maintaining the unit ,” he analyzes.

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The current level of real estate prices would appear as the central factor driving operations,” said Germán Gómez Picasso, founder of Reporte Inmobiliario.

On the other hand, in September there were 169 deeds formalized with a mortgage. Therefore, the increase in that sense is 43.2% compared to the same month last year. In the accumulated nine months, the growth is 9.5% (1,130 in total).

The increase in sales is not an isolated phenomenon in the city, but is replicated in the province of Buenos Aires . In open urbanizations such as Buenavista, in the northern area, the apartments in the well were sold in record times , in some cases registering hundreds of sales in a few hours.

There is also a latent and effusive demand for lots in gated communities , an option for the buyer profile that seeks security and greenery. An example is Verona Pilar, a venture located 700 meters from kilometer 47 of the Panamericana Pilar branch in which 62 lots were sold in just one day. So much so that real estate brokers are already talking about “the fourth migration to gated communities”.

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