[SkiddMarket]

Hey... just spent the weekend with a very knowledgeable friend of mine- from Buenos Aires, and a massive real estate player. He owns vacation properties in the beaches and ski resorts, and he had his best season in 20 years this year despite the collapse. Wealthy Argentines are staying home now instead of traveling abroad. He told me some amazing stories: for example, a few months back the banks stopped holding auctions for back taxes on foreclosed properties. $100K houses were put up for $5k. It seems that not only couldn't they get 5 cents on the dollar- they couldn't even get enough to pay for the expenses of the auction and associated legal fees. Recently there was a Supreme Court ruling that turned back the forced conversion from dollars to peso's. Now the banks have to refund the money lost in the currency exchange. But loans made in dollars and converted to pesos CANNOT be converted, so the banks are screwed in both directions.

Things are turning around over there now, though- as he puts it- there's still blood in the streets but much of it is washing down the storm drains. He's gonna check out some foreclosed apartment buildings for me- they're going now for about 20 cents on the damaged dollar- they cost more but the risk of total collapse appears over.

If anyone has any Argentina questions, I'll be happy to forward them to my friend.

[threadbare]

Skidd baby, Why buy in Argentina when you could wait a few years and get the same type of deal in U.S.?

Very interesting, and an example of what happens when a currency collapses. By the way, what I found interesting about what happened in Argentina is as their real estate was plummeting, everything else was skyrocketing. Weird hey? When the banks declared a holiday and hardly anyone had any money, prices went up in the grocery store. Right out of Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Thanks for volunteering to be our Argentinian agent. Should we be talking fees here?

[alborz]

Yes, please ask this question for me.
After/during the collapse, if one's money was all in pesos, would one be better off with cash or with RE? In other words, did RE appreciate with the devaluation of pesos just as the Merval appreciated 20% or did it collapse in pesos terms?

Thanks.