Trends in Córdoba Area Real Estate
A deep dive into the city of Cordobased, and surrounding areas.
Welcome Avatar! Now that the RE market is slowly coming out of a 4+ year hibernation after the Milei win, the time is ripe to go over some other regions in Argentina with interesting real estate opportunities. Córdoba is called Cordobased for a reason: besides a based voting patterns, it is also home to some of the most beautiful mountain areas.
At 700km distance from Buenos Aires, Córdoba is a great city to visit on a roadtrip (or you can fly in, but I would recommend renting a car to see the surrounding areas).
In this post we will go over the real estate numbers for the city of Córdoba, not the surrounding areas. Prices for properties in rural locations are not very homogeneous, and depend on a lot of additional different factors that need to be taken into account.
If you’re interested in buying a rural property I will enlist the most interesting regions to scout at the end of the article.
Overview
When comparing interior cities versus Buenos Aires one pattern that keeps emerging is the stronger downtrend in the last 3-4 years. Other cities have suffered significantly stronger price discounts in dollars versus Argentina’s capital city (over -30% versus -20/25% for BsAs).
This is also the case for Córdoba.
Another interesting detail is that interior cities tend to have a slightly more elevated sales volume in local (peso) currency. However, there is a downtrend as inflation has picked up in the last few years:
In 2023 the percentage of urban sales listings in dollars in Córdoba reached 92%, whereas in 2018 it was only 41%. What a difference the BCRA maquinita makes. You can safely assume all interesting sales will now be conducted in USD.
The average sales price for apartments in Córdoba is just $1,166/m2, vastly lower than Buenos Aires. Sales picked up in May of this year, reversing a downwards trend, and the accumulated average price increase in 2023 is +4% — the strongest increase since 2019.
Despite this increase, the average listing price is still almost half compared to Buenos Aires, even in desirable neighborhoods. Another plus is that properties tend to be bigger versus the tiny divisible shoeboxes flooding the market in the capital lately.
Zones & Neighborhoods
This overview is divided between zones and neighborhoods. Basically there are multiple neighborhoods within a zone.
Arguello is the most expensive zone in Córdoba, with an average price per square meter of $1,457. Still very reasonable when comparing to $3,000+ prices of Palermo, Recoleta etc in Buenos Aires.
It is also the zone with the highest annual increase, sales prices went up almost 10% here:
Central and Pueyrredón also show above average increases compared to the average of 3.4% this year so far.
When looking at the median prices in each zone, these three clearly come out on top, but it’s interesting to see the difference in lowest and highest price/m2 (especially in places like Villa del Libertador and Colón):
To me this suggests either two things: there are a few no go areas in these zones that are priced very differently. Desirable areas far outprice less desirable areas.
In May this year, price trends started to move upwards again after a 4 year decline. Since then, the median prices have started to slowly move up, but they’re still nowhere near the peak in 2018.
As an investment, unless you go for a furnished rental in USD, the returns on properties in this area are even okay if you decide to rent them out long term in pesos (around 5-6% YoY). In USD that gets closer to 10%+, but of course the demand for Airbnb’s is a lot lower in Córdoba vs Buenos Aires.
The best zones for return on investment are Centro, General Puerredón and Alberdi:
The fact that property prices are so much lower, indicate that you could possibly have a lot more interesting returns here if you launch an Airbnb in the right area.
At the peak, the average USD price/m2 in Córdoba hovered around $1,500 USD/m2:
This means prices are still -22% or more from previous highs, a significantly higher discount versus Buenos Aires.
When analyzing the most expensive vs cheapest neighborhoods, the average price per m2 in some of the highest are all well above $1,800/m2:
These neighorhoods are all located on the west side in the Arguello and Colón zones. When looking at the neighborhood YoY price increases, Villa Claret, Carola Lorenzini and Los Robles are showing insane 20%+ returns:
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though, and it would be interesting to see what caused the close to -16% to -18% decreases in the neighborhoods that decreased the most.
These variations do indicate that IF you select the right property in the right neighborhood, it’s a slam dunk if you add in the appreciation and potential returns.
Other Regions
The surrounding areas of Córdoba are beautiful, and this is what makes Córdoba city into an interesting base to start exploring the region.
Some of the greatest places to explore with enchanting landscapes are Villa General Belgrano (famous for its Oktoberfest), La Cumbrecita, Capilla del Monte, Los Cocos, Jesús María and Villa Carlos Paz.
Autist note: you can find some additional articles below that shed some more light on Argentina’s real estate market:
Conclusion
Córdoba definitely looks like an interesting option to look into real estate, especially given the price increases throughout 2023 that definitely trump those of Buenos Aires.
The fact that it’s Argentina’s second biggest city with desirable neighborhoods that are still priced at 1/3 compared to Buenos Aires, is also appealing.
If you’re interested in exploring Córdoba I would recommend staying in the city for a few weeks and travel around in the region to also look into rural property that is still close to the city.
See you in the Jungle, anon!
Great write up. I never was interested in buying outside of CABA and really mostly only in Recoleta and Palermo. I'm sure great ROI can be made but I always think Buenos Aires is the best place to buy in Argentina. It's fairly liquid if you're buying in premium areas and especially if you can show strong cash flow via rentals. I have sold hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate in Buenos Aires for my investors and almost all of it was in Recoleta and Palermo.
Those are the only two areas I'm buying in. Do you own anything in Cordoba Mara?
General comment for people who read this on email: the first version of this article included a wrong map at the start of Córdoba (Spain)