"The hardest thing is the feeling of becoming a child again, without autonomy..." Martina Campos, 33, has been showing AFP her "home" for a year: her mother's house where she moved in with husband and 2-year-old child, after leaving their apartment, whose rent was going to increase. Still, it was the right time to find another one... which they could never afford.

In an overcrowded room-room, the couple's objects pile up: table, coffee maker, microwave, in a corner their empty fridge, boxes in a bathroom. And a gloomy outlook, as wages lag behind inflation (108% year-on-year).

Even for a middle-class couple like Martina, an anthropologist, and Bruno, a computer technician.

"A few months ago," they were aiming for a ceiling of 150,000 pesos ($625 at the official rate) monthly rent, to which 50% of the household budget would be devoted. "Even today, by devoting 70% to it, we can't find housing," she despairs.

Martina Campos in a room of her mother's house where she moved with her husband and 2-year-old child, on May 26, 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina © Luis ROBAYO / AFP

With a peso in continuous decline (488 to the dollar at the informal rate, compared to 206 a year ago), and no certainty about its value the day after tomorrow, no landlord wants to hear about rent in pesos.

Complicated in a country subject to exchange controls (access limited to 200 dollars per month).

Rather empty than poorly rented

"We have nothing to rent in pesos, and when we return a property, it leaves in a few hours, people are desperate, they do not even ask to see it, want to book on simple photos," Fernanda Ledesma, a veteran real estate agent, told AFP.

Worsens the situation is a rental law initially supposed to protect tenants, which since mid-2020 (when inflation was "only" 36%) regulates rents to a single increase per year. "A time bomb, because leases that expire in mid-2023 will jump by 100%," predicts Alejandro Bennazar, of the Argentine Real Estate Board.

A sign for rent hangs outside an apartment window in Buenos Aires, on May 22, 2023 in Argentina © Luis ROBAYO / AFP

Also, many landlords prefer to keep an empty home rather than rent at a rent frozen for one year, and are waiting for a change in legislation. This dries up the supply even more.

Or they rent outside any legal framework, to a friend, a relative, an acquaintance. With conditions to their pleasure.

"This is the worst housing crisis in 30 years" in Buenos Aires, diagnoses the president of the Housing Institute (a kind of HLM office) of the municipality, Christian Werle, who estimates at 130,000 the number of empty homes in the capital.

A poster for a property for rent in dollars in the sought-after neighborhood of Palermo, on May 22, 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina © Luis ROBAYO / AFP

Officially "there are some 70,000 rental housing duly registered in the city, but we all know that about 500,000 households are tenants, it gives you an idea of the informality ...", he adds.

The nomadic dollar is king

The dollar, on the other hand, easily finds a home. With elevator, modern comfort. And possibly panoramic view, like Jamie Larson, 29-year-old New Zealander, one of the "digital nomads" arrived in large numbers in recent years (post-Covid, and taking advantage of the exchange rate). And who teleworks for a Californian IT company.

"If I did in London what I do here, for the same rent I would live in a shoebox," he smiles, in his 65m2 apartment in the trendy district of Palermo. Not without a touch of guilt though, for his contribution to a distortion of the local market.

New Zealander Jamie Larson in his rented modern apartment in the sought-after Palermo neighborhood on May 19, 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina © Luis ROBAYO / AFP

"It's completely crazy, when you see the salaries that people here are getting, to wait for them to pay in dollars (...) We end up with a situation where locals can no longer afford to live in their own city. It's absurd," he says of a phenomenon that spreads, in turn, to neighborhoods not necessarily touristy.

Still, "it is the owners who decide what they do with their property".

Sale -there are many-, short-term rental, even AirBnB, or normal rental, summarizes Sebastian Resguardo, real estate broker. And in dollars, please. Long-term leases in pesos abstain.

Real estate brokers Sebastian Resgardo (l) and Chiara Pollini, on May 22, 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina © Luis ROBAYO / AFP

The municipality, powerless, initiates many aids, advantageous credits for moving costs, or to renovate apartments on condition of renting.

But "there is no magic solution, what is needed is to stabilize the economy," says Christian Werle. With or without a roof, Argentines know it all too well.

© 2023 AFP