Any guesses where we think the Blue dollar exchange rate will head in 2024?

[James Bond]

Pretty much everyone got it wrong with few exceptions

https://twitter.com/x/status/1866657280894095558

It is really hard to guess what the exchange rate is when it isn't floating free. Let's see how it finishes out the year. I see it went above 1,200 today to 1,210.

 

[daveholman]

Fitch Solutions was close enough to claim bragging rights

 

[Finance Prof]

No doubt Mike, saving 4-5% on the purchase price is a biggie and much appreciated

This would be great if more developers let you pay outside of Argentina. When I bought my property a few years ago I had to get the cash to Argentina and had to use cuevas. I don't even think it was actually legal. Hopefully I don't have any problems when I sell.

 

[Uncle Wong]

It is really hard to guess what the exchange rate is when it isn't floating free. Let's see how it finishes out the year. I see it went above 1,200 today to 1,210.

What caused it to go up today? I just saw that the Central Bank sold $599 million bucks today! I thought they were buying dollars. Why did they sell so much?

 

[earlyretirement]

Everyone I know in Argentina deal with cash. I still have many acquaintances and friends that never use any credit or debit cards. They pay everything cash still. Estimated that there is about $277 to $350 Billion dollars hidden! This is a huge amount of GDP. The $20 billion that came back is nothing. Probably only about 8% of total undeclared.


This was most frustrating part for me of buying here. I bought many years ago before anyone allowed payment outside of Argentina. I paid a lot of money for nothing but getting cash here. Same experience counting out cash. Same experience as you @Betsy Ross with seller demanding replacement bills! She was rejecting older bills, marked bills even bills that were ok but had a slight crease.

I asked my friend in real estate and he told me still sellers are insisting on cash. Even people that have accounts outside Argentina are insisting on cash. I asked about crypto and he said no one is doing that and he works for a big company. @earlyretirement are you seeing any crypto currency transactions?

No doubt the amount of cash Argentines have in cash is massive. The most in the world. $22.16 Billion came back in cash and that is just a drop in the bucket compared to how much cash they are holding outside of the banking system.

It is crazy annoying to pay % to bring cash into Argentina but unfortunately, with currency controls, there is no free way to get cash here. The ideal situation is that the seller has an account outside of Argentina to avoid all of this. Crypto still isn't in vogue from sellers. I deal with tons of purchases and there is absolutely no appetite at all from sellers to receive crypto. They still want cash. People wanting to use their crypto are having to use stable coins and send them to Argentina and pay fees to get it here. With the volatility, there is no interest vs. getting cash in Argentina.

It is really hard to guess what the exchange rate is when it isn't floating free. Let's see how it finishes out the year. I see it went above 1,200 today to 1,210.

Correct. I have been saying that we will not know the true price of the Argentine peso until it is floating freely with no intervention by the government.

This would be great if more developers let you pay outside of Argentina. When I bought my property a few years ago I had to get the cash to Argentina and had to use cuevas. I don't even think it was actually legal. Hopefully I don't have any problems when I sell.

Fortunately with President Milei, he got rid of the requirement by foreigners to get a permit to sell their properties where they typically scrutinize everything. Of course if the regime changes they could always change it back. That is why it's essential to structure payment for real estate legally. You never know in the future if some government scrutinizes how money entered the country and what the laws were at the time of the purchase. You never should think about who the President is when you purchased but who the President will be when you want to sell. By doing everything legally you don't have to worry about any potential issues.

What caused it to go up today? I just saw that the Central Bank sold $599 million bucks today! I thought they were buying dollars. Why did they sell so much?

I posted about this today. Toyota exited their carry trade position.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1872523034126582048