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 redbrick
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.

All property deals in Argentina are closed in US dollars, so sterling’s current strength is another
incentive to buy. But there is one district in Buenos Aires where British buyers might think twice about
investing. Its name? Belgrano.

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

 

From The Sunday Times
January 14, 2007