From 250,000 to 500,000;
from 150,000 to 375,000;
from 90,000 to 400,000;
from pesos to dollars;
bimonthly and quarterly increases, updated by a rampant inflation rate.
Contracts that are signed for a handful of months,
or just for a year.
The anguish and uncertainty of
families and tenants
is climbing to unimaginable levels in the Buenos Aires area.
The rental laws - both of which were plagued by an inflationary context - and the implementation of the DNU - which freed up the market, even enabling contracts in foreign currency - only increased the levels of instability.
In recent weeks, different entities and organizations linked to the real estate market assured that since the end of the year, when the DNU came into force, there was a slight increase in an offer that was at its historical minimum, with less than 800 properties published throughout the capital.
They also said prices had started to drop.
But tenants do not agree and
the scenario of greater supply does not necessarily coincide with better prices.
In addition, a survey revealed that contracts are increasingly shorter and uncertainty persists for those who have to renew.
What is the limit on updating rents?
How is a balance achieved between the objective that an owner has - obtaining a return on his assets, "taking advantage" - and what the tenants will be able to support?
Today, reality shows that
prices increase on a scale
that forces many people to reformulate their lives: move, move away from their places of work and study, downsize, return to their parents' homes, allocate huge percentages of their income only to pay rent, get into debt, etc.
One month has passed since Javier Milei's DNU repealed the rental law and deregulated the market.
Photo: Federico Lopez Claro
"My feeling is that the situation is unviable, unsustainable over time. My contract has expired for years, we have been extending it and now I am negotiating a new one. I am paying 250,000 pesos for a two-room apartment. The real estate agency has already told me how things are going agreeing to sign the new contracts, in general:
doubling the current price, with a quarterly update for inflation and in pesos
," a resident of Villa Crespo, who preferred not to provide her name,
told
Clarín .
He lives with his partner and although they could pay this initial price,
the future worries them
.
"In this context, and without being experts in economics, we all know that inflation is not going to go down from one month to the next. The accumulated inflation between now and April can be 50% or more. In our case, the rent would rise to $750,000 just in the first update," he laments.
"What salary follows the evolution of inflation?"
, he asks.
Another family from Caballito tells
Clarín
about their situation: "The real estate agency notified us that the owner wants to cancel the contract that we have been extending for years. Today we are paying $300,000. There are new neighbors in the building and we know that they are paying "$600,000. We understand that the owner has a business, but this deregulation also creates these things,
every man for himself
."
The housing problem
Daniela Gargantini is an architect and researcher at Conicet at the Experimental Center for Economic Housing (CEVE) and a teacher at the Catholic University of Córdoba;
As an expert in habitat issues, she shares a worrying vision about the current panorama: "Today the tenant population is risking their future, they are thinking about where they are going to sleep next month. And although this issue is now manifesting itself as an extreme problem,
"has been developing in recent decades due to various factors
: increase in land value, stagnation of income, absence of mortgage credit and lack of state policies that mitigate the problem, among others."
He understands that the lack of policies
today leaves the middle classes exposed
, because they are families that "did not depend on state production" to have a home.
Gargantini warns: "The place in which we live conditions our access to education and work."
He mentions these two activities as an example, but it also impacts transportation, security, access to culture and green spaces;
In short, to urban uses and the expectations that people have of living in the places they choose to develop, grow and amplify their life stories.
"It is foreseeable that abuses will occur, because pretending that the parties are on equal terms is a utopia.
At the country level, tenancy grew from 16% to 28% in the last decade
," Gargantini explained.
The researcher understands that when there is a concentration of housing for rental purposes, "it is difficult for these assets to be offered to the market if they do not satisfy the profitability of investors. On the other hand, there may be a certain balance in the case of those people or families who have a well as a second source of income.
This situation is experienced by families who rent their own property and at the same time are tenants to expand their square meters, a classic in the City.
Between January 14 and 17, the organization Inquilinos Agrupados (with the support of the collective Ni una menos) conducted a survey and based on 3,354 responses, concluded, among other things, that "
31.6% of the income of the tenant households is used to pay the rent
plus expenses, without considering taxes and public services. But in the case of those rentals that began after November 1,
the incidence of the expense amounts to 41.6%."
The survey revealed that
"the participation of short rental contracts grew
, with a period of less than 6 months: these represent almost 25% of the cases."
And it made visible that "53.1% of the renter households surveyed have debts of some type (almost 40% owe payments on credit cards)."
Families were also consulted about what they feel and expect.
Anguish (78%), anxiety (75%) and the feeling of hopelessness (68%) predominate.
And the vast majority (92.9%) considers that 2024 will be worse than 2023.
"In an inflationary context and economic crisis, deregulating the market is the worst option. Far from contributing to improving the conditions of access to housing, it leads to increasing speculation and uncertainty. The rental housing market is very heterogeneous
and complex
", evaluated María de la Paz Toscani, doctor in Social Sciences and researcher at Conicet.
Toscani regrets the lack of information about the tenant universe and the irresponsibility of the State in the face of rental relations: "Tax benefits or, conversely, tax burdens can be given in the case of vacant homes. Today, there is little information about who are the people or economic groups that own the homes. In the previous law, the need to
register rental properties in AFIP
was established, but very few did so.
This would have made it possible to obtain taxes that all commercial activities pay and also to be able to identify better who they are renting to.
That is, having information that allows us to outline policies that facilitate the lives of tenant families in the face of an essential human right, such as housing.
As a researcher on issues linked to housing policies, she understands that there are tools that could provide solutions: "You can work on a law that regulates temporary rentals (it is estimated that in the City there are 20,000 properties published through platforms such as Airbnb). Now It happens in other cities in the world, where tourist activity is important. There are also countries that guarantee supply and better accessibility through state housing for rent. But I don't have in mind any country that has the housing market deregulated. ".
To all this combo that so worries the residents of the City who are under the umbrella of the middle class, is added a problem linked to the lower classes.
Which shows the transversality of this housing crisis.
In October
Clarín
published a report from the Buenos Aires Ombudsman's Office that reported on the impact of the rental crisis on the pension and hotel market: in the last 10 years the amount of this type of housing
in the city
was reduced by half.
Buenos aires city.
Almost 45% of hotels and guesthouses have overcrowded conditions and 20% have critical overcrowding;
40% operate without authorization and with serious building deficiencies.
S.C.