Buenos Aires is a high rise city. You can’t walk one block in the Argentine capital without encountering an apartment block and fewer and fewer people live in houses. Each apartment block has its own complex system of communal maintenance, bills and employers. The cost of maintaining an apartment block is increasing and residents are finding that their Buenos Aires utility bills are costing nearly as much as their rent.
Apartment blocks in Buenos Aires are divided into different categories depending on how many facilities they have. The first category has three or more services such as, central heating, swimming pool, gym etc. Second level buildings have 2 different types of services; third only one and residents in fourth have no services or amenities. However, all buildings in Buenos Aires have their costs that all residents have to pay for. Expenses include electricity bills for lifts and lights, fire extinguishers, water tank cleaning, fumigation. In the last two months, all of these costs have experienced a sharp 12% increase.
On top of these experiences there are also the building’s staff salaries. The wages of porters and doormen has increased by 21.5% and so has the salaries of cleaning staff, rubbish collectors and gardeners. So the more services a building has the higher the costs for residents. These extra hidden costs are crucial to consider when buying an apartment in Buenos Aires. You may think it’s just a case of signing and paying for the property. However, the costs do not end there. People buying a holiday home should be aware that their apartment will still be charged for maintenance expenses even when they’re not there.
For those who are renting not buying on the Buenos Aires real estate market the costs can sometimes rival the actual cost of renting. However, some properties are more affected by the rises in costs in the Buenos Aires utility bills so make sure you choose well and take this into consideration when renting.
Buyers looking to rent should be aware that the profitability of renting has dropped to 4.5% thanks to expenses, when it usually stands at around 6%. Big time Buenos Aires real estate tycoons will not be affected, but investors who rent out a handle of properties will feel the impact of having to reduce profits to cover expenses.
The hope is that these costs in the Buenos Aires utility bills will eventually lower and that inflation too will be controlled. Yet, realistically that is unlikely to happen and investors and tenants will have to take expenses and maintenance into account.
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