Beachfront property in Argentina
Beachfront property in Argentina
An overview of beach areas close to BA, and 3 developments in particular
Welcome Avatar! As a result of the community votes on this Twitter poll, this article will go over beach front property in Argentina, with a general overview of the most popular beach towns and three real estate developments that I have been looking into in particular, with pros and cons. Let’s dive in.
To get a better idea of the coastal area of interest, we’ll go over the details first related to the beach towns and areas closer to Buenos Aires.
BA Coastal Area - Overview
Of course, the coastline in Argentina is huge and thousands of miles long, so this slice is by no means a full overview of beaches. It is however, the most popular and visited slice of the coast.
Autist note: For a bigger overview of beaches further down south, also see my Argentina coast thread here. Keep in mind that the further south you go, the colder the water temperatures will be (one exception being Golfo San Matías (1,056km/656mi from Buenos Aires) in the Río Negro province which has a warmer current, even warmer than the water at the beaches discussed here.
For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the following subsection, and the area just past Mar del Plata.
The Partido de La Costa is located southeast of the Province of Buenos Aires, 320 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires, with San Clemente del Tuyú being the first town in the district that occupies a coastal strip 96 kilometers long and a variable width of 2 to 4 kilometers.
In the north it borders the Samborombón Bay (at the end of which the River Plate converts into ocean), in the south by the Pinamar District.
This area of beach towns started to develop quickly from the 1930s onwards, and almost 100 years later, this area is fully developed with a limited number of new developments going on.
A little further down south closer to Pinamar, there are still areas that are not fully developed or have room for new developments.
This is also the area that is the nicest slice of coastal nature before getting to Mar del Plata: Pinamar, Cariló, Mar de las Pampas and Mar Azul.
Many trees have been planted over the years, and while Pinamar is a bigger town, the other three are best described as “mansions and bungalows in the forest” with 1 or 2 commercial streets.
Villa Gesell is stuck in the middle, and even though it is a popular city many locals rave about, in my opinion it is forgettable, with a lot of new construction and virtually no trees. A typical 70-80s beach town.
Autist note: driving from Buenos Aires city, getting to the first towns of the Partido de la Costa will take about 2.5-3 hours, depending on traffic. Driving from BsAs to Mar del Plata is roughly 4.5-5 hours, and you can add 1 hour to get to Chapadmalal.
Below I will go over 3 development zones, in order with regards to the distance from Buenos Aires. The first being the closest, the last the one that is furthest away.
Important disclosure: I am not invested in or associated to any of these projects, and still looking if and when I potentially would invest. These are just 3 examples of projects I found potentially interesting for a variety of reasons.
Development Example 1 - NorthBeach (Pinamar)
NorthBeach is a large gated neighborhood (called country or barrio cerrado in Argentina) full of natural forests and lakes, right next to the beach and close to Pinamar. In total, the NorthBeach area covers 274 hectares, with 1.2 kilometers of exclusive beaches.
The neighborhood is located just 4 km north of La Frontera (Pinamar), on Route 11, km 378. Five buildings with apartments have been built on the first line of the sea. They are units between 1 and 3 bedrooms with a balcony with ocean views, space for an electric grill, garage included, and amenities.
More than 30% of the land is destined to preserve the existing nature, with common spaces like a 9-hole golf course, tennis, soccer, paddle tennis, basketball and rugby courts, an indoor heated pool and a Club House.
According to the project’s website, soon they will also start building a shopping center in the complex (making sure you never have to leave, lol).
Average prices:
$75,000 USD for a 1,000m2 plot (without construction). Many of the plots closer to the beaches go for $90,000+, which is already considerable without having anything constructed.
Keep in mind that construction costs, besides time (at least 1 year+) for a 3-4 bedroom home, will set you back around $1,200-$1,500 USD/m2, depending on the materials used. This average does include labor and materials.
Note: I am still waiting to hear back about the pricing for the apartments. Once I get more details, I will add those here.
Payment options:
Up front payment of 40%,
4 reinforcements of 10% each: (1st reinforcement upon possession, 2nd reinforcement 6 months after purchase, 3rd reinforcement 12 months after purchase and 4th reinforcement 18 months after purchase)
Rest of balance in 24 installments in dollars (no interest)
Cash payments in full have a 30% discount, which is considerable.
So let’s say you want to build a 120m2 home on your 1,000m2 plot, you’re looking at: $75,000 + $162,000 = $237,000.
Say you pay the plot down at once (the 24 months payment plan isn’t that long), it would be roughly $214,500.
Of course that second part for the construction would be more spread out over the course of likely 1-2 years.
Important to note that in a country like this, you HAVE to build a house, and usually building requirements are stricter than on a plot out in the open, as the ones we will go over below. You can’t just buy the plot and leave it there to appreciate as more owners start building their homes.
Pros & Cons
Personally, I do not dig countries or gated communities at all, and prefer an “open neighborhood”. The levels of insecurity in Argentina are not up to Brazil or Mexico levels, although many locals will disagree with me on this and say that it is going in that direction.
The reason I included it here, is that I do very much dig the location and the neighborhood set up, in combination with semi private beaches.
Also, in my research for property close to the beach, one of my main concerns IS actually that I won’t be there all the time, and the fact that these terrains are gated, is a plus from that perspective. Zero chance of squatters or break-ins.
One negative is definitely price: the plots are already relatively expensive and geared towards an upper middle class buyer profile (which is good for future valuations).
Ideally I would prefer getting into a project like this at an earlier stage, when the developer is still raising cash to buy all the hectares and before splitting up the individual plots (this is very hard, and you need to personally know the developer to get in at those stages).
Another thing to keep in mind is time and effort, and even though there are turnkey solutions out there, you will still have to wait at least 1 year or longer, before you can occupy something liveable on your plot. So from that perspective it is a long process, with personal checks at different stages; unless you want to outsource it from start to finish.
Depending on what they come back with, buying a finished apartment might be interesting, even though I am personally more interested for bigger surface areas and standalone houses with a garden.
One last thing to consider is that these countries tend to have higher admin fees given the amount of amenities, but if you’re able to rent it out when you’re not using the property the rent should more than cover it.
Development Example 2 - Tipantú
The second example is Tipantú, a rectangle slice close to Santa Clara del Mar and Camet Norte, and just a short 20 minute drive from Mar del Plata.
This is not a private neighborhood, but an urbanization with differentiated characteristics compared to the current offerings in this area (more green, and bigger parcels).
The project is located at kilometer 493 of Ruta 11 and is set up on private land that was forested 20 years ago. The neighborhood has all the necessary approvals from the municipality and the province for the current stages.
At the moment, streets are paved and electrical installation is being carried out. The intention is that the owners can start building their homes at the end of 2023.
Andrés Albide, one of the managers of Tipantú, said he would love to turn the neighborhood into a “mini Cariló”. This is a good indication of what their target buyers are (upper middle class).
Average prices:
As you can see from the map below, more than half of the plots have been sold:
Prices are reasonable and about 20-30% lower compared to the previous NorthBeach project:
Nice thing is that financing is offered in pesos at CAC, and that there’s 36 months of installments (fixed in USD, in pesos with CAC MoM % adjustments).
Pros & Cons
The plots and the general area are both smaller versus the previous project, but one plus in my view is the fact that you’re relatively close to Mar del Plata, an awesome city with a lot to do.
Pricing is reasonable, and the payment options and duration of installments is better for this project versus NorthBeach. Also like the fact that it is an open neighborhood, not a gated community.
The downsides are the same: you have to do construction, and there’s an additional downside here that you can’t buy existing property, like the apartments we saw in NorthBeach.
Overall for my personal situation I do like this project better (extended family in Mar del Plata), but if there’s not a good turnkey constructor I would probably not start a project like this.
Development Example 3 - Chapadmalal Area
Playa Chapadmalal is the oldest urbanization in the area after Mar del Plata, about 30-40 minutes out of the city. It’s residential environment of both permanent and temporary housing, surrounded urban and rural developments.
It has a dense grove that mixes with a countryside of natural grasslands with a lagoon. The neat and well-kept streets lead to the squares and the main entrances.
Chapadmalal is by far the most urbanized of the beaches below, and due to that also one of the most popular holiday spots:
I’ve been looking into this area for about 5 years now, and haven’t pulled the trigger yet. One of the cons that I had at the time was the fact that many of these areas were still underdeveloped, and “out in the open”. My issue was that without being close by, it would be hard to protect the property from squatters.
This website has the most on offer in terms of terrains, plots and existing houses, so to get an idea of what’s out there, that’s a good place to start.
Average prices:
Chapadmalal: $45,000 USD for a 1,000m2 plot
Other beaches: $12,000-$25,000 USD for a 450m2 plot
Turn key / used homes: Starting from $57,000 up to $200,000+
Pros & Cons
By now there are many permanent resident in most of these beach towns past Mar del Plata, especially Chapadmalal, so the possibility of break-ins and squatters are lower now.
Pricing is very reasonable, and for plots there will be a similar pricing arrangement (at least when I was actively researching a while back), as the project we’ve seen before. That means CAC installments or USD for plots, whereas existing property will most likely have to be paid in full, unless you can make other arrangements with the seller.
Downsides for me is the lack of trees in this area, which is compensated by the fact that Chapadmalal is turning into a very nice little town with restaurants etc. It is preferable to see that kind of organic growth versus a shopping strip created out of thin air because it fits a certain project (like in NorthBeach).
Another positive is the fact that many existing homes are for sale in these beach towns, which means less headaches if you don’t want to deal with construction.
Now that you’ve seen my pros and cons here, let me know in the comments what you think.
See you in the Jungle, anon!