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Argentina's Ready to Tango - The Times
Argentina’s ready to tangoBuenos Aires offers some of the best property bargains in the world. And, says Mangal Kapoor, the British are welcome
January 14, 2007
Mention Buenos Aires, and most people in Britain still think of rioters protesting about the Falklands war. But in Argentina, all that is now a distant memory. The county’s capital has reclaimed its title as South America’s most cosmopolitan city and is once again attracting visitors from around the world. What’s more, the city’s English and Anglo-Argentine communities are thriving.
A 15-hour flight from London, Buenos Aires is a beguiling city of broad avenues and well-maintained parks, where the quality of life is good and the cost of living is low. Summer runs from late November to February, with temperatures reaching average highs of 24C-29C.
And there’s more good news: property is incredibly cheap compared with capital cities of similar sophistication elsewhere in the world. Although prices have recovered substantially from the lows of the economic crisis of June-July 2002, when they fell by up to 50%, it is still possible to buy a flat in downtown Buenos Aires at a fraction of the cost in London.
Prospective buyers, though, should move fast. Official figures from the country’s College of Notaries show that property prices in Buenos Aires rose by 37% in the year to October 2006.
The hottest property spot in the city is Puerto Madero, the former docks east of the central Plaza de Mayo. Giant cranes still loom on the opposite bank of the River Plate, but in Puerto Madero, old red-brick warehouses have been turned into smart shops and stylish restaurants, and a new apartment building designed by Foster and Partners, El Aleph, is due for completion in June 2009, with off-plan flats, starting at £150,000, available through Aylesford International estate agency. The flamboyant developer behind El Aleph, Alan Faena, has already built one of the city’s trendiest locales in the area in collaboration with Philippe Starck: the iconic Faena hotel, which drips luxury.
Adjoining it is another recently completed Faena apartment block, El Porteño, where an on-site letting and management service is offered for overseas buyers. Flats here, available through estate agent Pablo Casares, range from 50sq m to 300sq m (540sq ft-3,300sq ft) and cost £110,000- £600,000.
If Puerto Madero sounds too expensive, bargains can still be had a five-minute walk south of the city centre, in areas such as San Telmo, home to many of the city’s tango salons, and Monserrat, the old artisans’ quarter. Jane Green, 38, an interior designer, and her Dutch husband, Klaus van de Meyer, 40, who is in the oil business, bought an investment flat in Monserrat during a brief working stint in the city. Now based in Dubai, they also own a flat in Notting Hill, west London.
“We found a dilapidated loft about a year ago for £30,000 and spent a bit doing it up,” says Green. “It’s now worth £55,000. We rent it to young Europeans, who flock here to set up businesses or just to have fun. The cost of living is so low.” More upmarket is Palermo, north of the centre, where the city’s famous polo ground and racecourse are located. It is divided into Palermo Chico (expensive), Palermo Viejo (moderate) and Palermo Soho (up and coming), where prices for a duplex flat start at about £250,000.
In a city of more than 11m people (97% of whom have European roots), it is possible to indulge your every fantasy. Two years ago, James de Molyneux, an American property developer, and his boyfriend, Rex Crawford, bought the top two floors of an art nouveau building in Caballito, a district he describes as “middle-class”. The flat, on Rivadavia, a road that bisects the city from east to west, needed extensive renovation.
“We now have 7,000sq ft with three dining rooms, a three-bed suite on the roof terrace, a winter garden and a Louis Philippe salon,” says de Molyneux. “There are parquet floors throughout and we have two resident butlers.” He thinks the flat is now worth about £300,000.
But why confine yourself to the capital? Some enterprising buyers, such as Neil Rushen, from Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, have gone further afield. Having decided to quit Britain, he and his wife, Sue, “looked in all the usual places: France, Spain, South Africa, eastern Europe, 28 countries in all”, before plumping for the Mendoza wine-growing region, about an hour’s flight from Buenos Aires.
In August 2004, the couple took possession of a 19th-century country house near San Rafael with a guest lodge and 60 acres, for £100,000. “There are no restrictions to foreigners buying property in Argentina, and the process is relatively straightforward compared with England,” says Rushen, who believes the country’s economic problems are firmly in the past. “There may be fluctuations, but the market is definitely on the way up.”
Rushen has set up Mendoza Property to help other British buyers follow his example. One person who already owns there is the Duchess of York. She has bought a large plot on the Santa Maria de Los Andes development in Lujan de Cuyo, a 2,000-acre vineyard estate where individual owners select the grape varieties to grow on their plot and the estate’s wine-makers do the rest. Plots start at about £175,000 for 12 acres.
Catering to both Argentinians and foreign buyers are the many “country clubs” within a couple of hours’ drive of the capital. These are gated communities with golf courses, polo fields and lakes for watersports, reminiscent of the home counties, but with searchlights.
Plots start at about £50,000 and owners build to their own specifications, with costs low and the standard of finish high. The new Santa Maria de Lobos estate has attracted the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, who splashed out on a triple plot overlooking the lake. Lobos, 70 miles southwest of Buenos Aires along the excellent toll roads, is the main polo centre, but country clubs also exist closer to town, at Martindale, Tortuga and Maschwitz.
Porteños, as residents of Buenos Aires are known, head abroad to find a beach. Punta del Este, Uruguay’s most famous resort, is about an hour away by air. Akin to Miami in the 1970s, it might not be to everyone’s taste, but along the beach, Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan architect, has designed Edificio Acqua, a dramatic collection of flats inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, with sweeping coastal views. Flats can be bought off-plan for completion later this year through Pablo Casares. They aren’t cheap — a 300sq m studio is about £450,000 — but they are beautiful.
On the market
One of 250 flats at El Aleph, a development in Puerto Madero, designed by Foster and Partners, is due to completed by 2010. A three-bedroom penthouse with a terrace is for sale for £1.6m with Aylesford International, 020 7351 2383, www.aylesford.com
An hour’s flight from Buenos Aires, this five-bedroom villa in San Rafael has a swimming pool, three terraces and three acres of land, including a plum orchard. It is for sale for £103,000 with Mendoza Property, 020 7193 1807, www.mendozaproperty.com
In Recoleta, a historic neighbourhood of the city, this 915sq ft flat is on the market for £110,000. Recently renovated, the two-bedroom, air- conditioned flat is for sale, fully furnished, with ApartmentsBA.com, 00 5411 5254 0100, www.apartmentsba.com.A 3,230sq ft flat in Darwin Lofts, a former textile factory, in the trendy Palermo Viejo district, has three bedrooms and a large, open-plan reception room. The flat is for sale for £190,000 with ApartmentsBA.com, 00 5411 5254 0100, www.apartmentsba.com
Pablo Casares, 00 5411 4814 4533; Santa Maria de los Andes, 00 5411 4331 3250, www.santamariadelosandes.com; Santa Maria de Lobos, 00 5411 4334 1000, www.santamariadelobos.com
www.buysellba.com
Argentina’s ready to tangoBuenos Aires offers some of the best property bargains in the world. And, says Mangal Kapoor, the British are welcome
January 14, 2007
Mention Buenos Aires, and most people in Britain still think of rioters protesting about the Falklands war. But in Argentina, all that is now a distant memory. The county’s capital has reclaimed its title as South America’s most cosmopolitan city and is once again attracting visitors from around the world. What’s more, the city’s English and Anglo-Argentine communities are thriving.
A 15-hour flight from London, Buenos Aires is a beguiling city of broad avenues and well-maintained parks, where the quality of life is good and the cost of living is low. Summer runs from late November to February, with temperatures reaching average highs of 24C-29C.
And there’s more good news: property is incredibly cheap compared with capital cities of similar sophistication elsewhere in the world. Although prices have recovered substantially from the lows of the economic crisis of June-July 2002, when they fell by up to 50%, it is still possible to buy a flat in downtown Buenos Aires at a fraction of the cost in London.
Prospective buyers, though, should move fast. Official figures from the country’s College of Notaries show that property prices in Buenos Aires rose by 37% in the year to October 2006.
The hottest property spot in the city is Puerto Madero, the former docks east of the central Plaza de Mayo. Giant cranes still loom on the opposite bank of the River Plate, but in Puerto Madero, old red-brick warehouses have been turned into smart shops and stylish restaurants, and a new apartment building designed by Foster and Partners, El Aleph, is due for completion in June 2009, with off-plan flats, starting at £150,000, available through Aylesford International estate agency. The flamboyant developer behind El Aleph, Alan Faena, has already built one of the city’s trendiest locales in the area in collaboration with Philippe Starck: the iconic Faena hotel, which drips luxury.
Adjoining it is another recently completed Faena apartment block, El Porteño, where an on-site letting and management service is offered for overseas buyers. Flats here, available through estate agent Pablo Casares, range from 50sq m to 300sq m (540sq ft-3,300sq ft) and cost £110,000- £600,000.
If Puerto Madero sounds too expensive, bargains can still be had a five-minute walk south of the city centre, in areas such as San Telmo, home to many of the city’s tango salons, and Monserrat, the old artisans’ quarter. Jane Green, 38, an interior designer, and her Dutch husband, Klaus van de Meyer, 40, who is in the oil business, bought an investment flat in Monserrat during a brief working stint in the city. Now based in Dubai, they also own a flat in Notting Hill, west London.
“We found a dilapidated loft about a year ago for £30,000 and spent a bit doing it up,” says Green. “It’s now worth £55,000. We rent it to young Europeans, who flock here to set up businesses or just to have fun. The cost of living is so low.” More upmarket is Palermo, north of the centre, where the city’s famous polo ground and racecourse are located. It is divided into Palermo Chico (expensive), Palermo Viejo (moderate) and Palermo Soho (up and coming), where prices for a duplex flat start at about £250,000.
In a city of more than 11m people (97% of whom have European roots), it is possible to indulge your every fantasy. Two years ago, James de Molyneux, an American property developer, and his boyfriend, Rex Crawford, bought the top two floors of an art nouveau building in Caballito, a district he describes as “middle-class”. The flat, on Rivadavia, a road that bisects the city from east to west, needed extensive renovation.
“We now have 7,000sq ft with three dining rooms, a three-bed suite on the roof terrace, a winter garden and a Louis Philippe salon,” says de Molyneux. “There are parquet floors throughout and we have two resident butlers.” He thinks the flat is now worth about £300,000.
But why confine yourself to the capital? Some enterprising buyers, such as Neil Rushen, from Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, have gone further afield. Having decided to quit Britain, he and his wife, Sue, “looked in all the usual places: France, Spain, South Africa, eastern Europe, 28 countries in all”, before plumping for the Mendoza wine-growing region, about an hour’s flight from Buenos Aires.
In August 2004, the couple took possession of a 19th-century country house near San Rafael with a guest lodge and 60 acres, for £100,000. “There are no restrictions to foreigners buying property in Argentina, and the process is relatively straightforward compared with England,” says Rushen, who believes the country’s economic problems are firmly in the past. “There may be fluctuations, but the market is definitely on the way up.”
Rushen has set up Mendoza Property to help other British buyers follow his example. One person who already owns there is the Duchess of York. She has bought a large plot on the Santa Maria de Los Andes development in Lujan de Cuyo, a 2,000-acre vineyard estate where individual owners select the grape varieties to grow on their plot and the estate’s wine-makers do the rest. Plots start at about £175,000 for 12 acres.
Catering to both Argentinians and foreign buyers are the many “country clubs” within a couple of hours’ drive of the capital. These are gated communities with golf courses, polo fields and lakes for watersports, reminiscent of the home counties, but with searchlights.
Plots start at about £50,000 and owners build to their own specifications, with costs low and the standard of finish high. The new Santa Maria de Lobos estate has attracted the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, who splashed out on a triple plot overlooking the lake. Lobos, 70 miles southwest of Buenos Aires along the excellent toll roads, is the main polo centre, but country clubs also exist closer to town, at Martindale, Tortuga and Maschwitz.
Porteños, as residents of Buenos Aires are known, head abroad to find a beach. Punta del Este, Uruguay’s most famous resort, is about an hour away by air. Akin to Miami in the 1970s, it might not be to everyone’s taste, but along the beach, Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan architect, has designed Edificio Acqua, a dramatic collection of flats inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, with sweeping coastal views. Flats can be bought off-plan for completion later this year through Pablo Casares. They aren’t cheap — a 300sq m studio is about £450,000 — but they are beautiful.
On the market
One of 250 flats at El Aleph, a development in Puerto Madero, designed by Foster and Partners, is due to completed by 2010. A three-bedroom penthouse with a terrace is for sale for £1.6m with Aylesford International, 020 7351 2383, www.aylesford.com
An hour’s flight from Buenos Aires, this five-bedroom villa in San Rafael has a swimming pool, three terraces and three acres of land, including a plum orchard. It is for sale for £103,000 with Mendoza Property, 020 7193 1807, www.mendozaproperty.com
In Recoleta, a historic neighbourhood of the city, this 915sq ft flat is on the market for £110,000. Recently renovated, the two-bedroom, air- conditioned flat is for sale, fully furnished, with ApartmentsBA.com, 00 5411 5254 0100, www.apartmentsba.com.A 3,230sq ft flat in Darwin Lofts, a former textile factory, in the trendy Palermo Viejo district, has three bedrooms and a large, open-plan reception room. The flat is for sale for £190,000 with ApartmentsBA.com, 00 5411 5254 0100, www.apartmentsba.com
Pablo Casares, 00 5411 4814 4533; Santa Maria de los Andes, 00 5411 4331 3250, www.santamariadelosandes.com; Santa Maria de Lobos, 00 5411 4334 1000, www.santamariadelobos.com
www.buysellba.com
