The Buenos Aires property market is finally starting to feel different on the ground. After years of falling prices, stalled projects, and scarce credit, the numbers now point to a healthier, more balanced stage: prices have found a floor, banks are slowly reopening the tap for mortgages, construction costs are calming, and the rental market is normalising.
Prices are stabilising, not booming
The average asking price for apartments in the City of Buenos Aires is now around US$2,449 per square meter, with almost no month‑to‑month change but a year‑on‑year increase of 5.5%. This is the first sustained upward cycle in seven years and signals that values have stopped sliding and are beginning a gradual recovery. Within this, apartments under construction are leading the way with an annual rise of 8.3%, followed by newly built units (+5.2%) and used units (+3.3%), and the gap between new and used has stretched to about 31%, the widest since 2015, reflecting renewed appetite for fresh, higher‑spec product.
Banks are slowly coming back to mortgages
One of the clearest “green shoots” is in the mortgage market, where some private banks have begun quietly repositioning their UVA loans. ICBC, for example, cut its nominal annual rate to 1% for clients who deposit their salaries with the bank, down from 13%, a strong signal that it wants to grow its share in housing finance. Banco Nación moved in the opposite direction, nudging its UVA rate for primary residences from 4.5% to 6% APR, the first increase since relaunch, yet it still offers the lowest rate in the system and concentrates more than 40% of total mortgage loans. This mix of selective cuts by private banks and moderate hikes by the public bank shows a system looking for a sustainable balance, in a country where mortgages are still tiny—equivalent to just 0.2% of GDP, versus 5–10% in most of the region and around 30% in Chile—so the upside is huge if stability holds.
Asking prices look more realistic
Price “realism” is also improving, and that matters for anyone trying to buy or sell. Only about 25% of listings were repriced downward in October, and those that did were adjusted by an average of 6%, compared with 37% of properties being cut and average drops of 8.4% in 2020. Fewer, smaller discounts usually mean listing prices are closer to actual closing values, which speeds up negotiations and reduces the gap between what sellers expect and what buyers are willing to pay.
Construction costs are easing, and projects are reviving
On the development side, construction costs in dollars fell about 1.5% month‑on‑month in October, after a long period of steady increases. Even with that dip, they remain roughly 26% above the 2012–2024 historical average and close to three times the lows seen in 2020, so building is still far from “cheap.” However, this recent moderation, combined with a more contained exchange‑rate gap, is enough to bring some shelved projects back to the drawing board and gives developers a bit more visibility when running feasibility studies and planning launches.
Rentals are normalising, and yields improve
The rental market, which was under severe stress not long ago, is also moving toward a healthier balance. Compared with the trough in 2023, the supply of rental units has tripled, while rents in 2025 have risen by around 29.8% overall, including a 2.4% increase in October alone. Gross yields now average about 4.8% annually across the city, but jump to around 8.5% in Lugano and 7.4% in Nueva Pompeya, making some southern neighbourhoods particularly attractive for buy‑to‑let investors and helping realign incentives between owners and tenants.
What it all means for 2026
Taken together, these signals describe a market that is healing, not overheating. Listing prices have stopped falling and are inching up, mortgages are tiptoeing back, construction costs are no longer running away, and rentals are rebalancing as supply returns. If inflation keeps declining and competition among banks deepens, mortgages could once again become a central driver of demand in 2026, giving end‑users real purchasing power and turning real estate back into a genuine engine of growth rather than a purely cash‑driven niche market.
Sourced from a Variety of Buenos Aires Reports
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Founded in 2004, GTSA began as a single office in Buenos Aires. Since then, it has grown into a vibrant regional network, providing professional real estate marketing services to clients in AR, BR, CL, PY, PE, and UY.
