Property prices in Buenos Aires are on an upward trend. As a result, the city now occupies fourth place in a regional ranking that measures the value of real estate in the main Latin American cities.
The cities with the most expensive square meter prices in the region are, in descending order: Montevideo (US$3,454); Mexico City ($2,706); Monterrey, Mexico ($2,561); Buenos Aires ($2,540); São Paulo (US$2,303); Rio de Janeiro (US$2,211); and Lima (US$2,098). On the other hand, those with the most affordable square meter are, in ascending order: Quito (US$ 1,215), Córdoba, in Argentina (US$ 1,528), Rosario, in Argentina (US$ 1,547); and Panama City ($1,761).
While Córdoba and Rosario remained stable in the ranking compared to March 2024, Buenos Aires rose two positions compared to March and three compared to September 2023, according to Relevamiento Imobiliário Latino-Americano (Rial), a survey prepared by the Business School from Torcuato University Di Tella University in conjunction with the real estate advertising platform Zonaprop.
The research reports the price per square meter of apartments in neighborhoods in 13 cities in eight Latin American countries that are comparable to the following neighborhoods in Buenos Aires: Barrio Norte, Belgrano, Caballito and Recoleta. The calculation is made based on the price requested in sales advertisements on websites, most of which belong to the QuintoAndar Group.
Compared to March this year, the square meter in Buenos Aires increased by 4.7% in dollars.
In cities where prices are normally expressed in local currency, they were converted to dollars using the average exchange rate for the month of the survey, according to Reuters. To convert Argentine prices to pesos, since September 2019 the MEP or Bolsa exchange rate has been used, which arises from the intermediation of securities on the stock market.
On average, prices in Latin America fell 2.3% in nominal dollars, 3.2% in real dollars and did not register any variation in real local currency. In other words, the value per square meter fell in both physical and inflation-adjusted US dollars, and remained stable in inflation-adjusted local currency.
Measured in nominal dollars, the city with the largest percentage price increase was Córdoba (5.3%). In turn, the biggest falls occurred in Santiago (10.6%); Monterrey (9.7%); and Guadalajara, Mexico (9.6%) in the last semester.
Evaluated in real local currency, the cities with the biggest increases were Montevideo (9.9%) and São Paulo (5.2%). The biggest falls occurred in Santiago (16.1%); Rosario (5.9%); and Buenos Aires (5.3%).
As the report clarifies, “these are not transaction prices, they are the prices requested by the seller in the classified ads on the websites. To avoid frequent distortions in this type of measurement, we focused on certain neighborhoods in each city, where young professionals typically live.