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Is rental property worth buying in Argentina?

Why are investors looking at rental property in Argentina again?

Rental property in Argentina has become investable again because rents, property prices and rental rules now line up much better for landlords than they did a few years ago.

The change is unusually large. BBVA Research's 2026 real-estate review found that gross residential yields had roughly doubled from their 2020 lows across most of the main Argentine markets. Córdoba and parts of Greater Buenos Aires moved above 6%, while Buenos Aires City recovered toward the mid-5% range.

The latest numbers show that this recovery has held. Zonaprop currently puts the gross rental yield in Buenos Aires City, or CABA, at 5.76%. Córdoba is much higher at 7.80%, while southern Greater Buenos Aires is at 6.91%. Zonaprop's most recent Rosario reading is 5.99%.

Those yields would have looked very unusual during the worst years of the Argentine rental market. In 2020, Zonaprop was measuring barely 2.1% gross in CABA. At that level, an apartment needed more than 40 years of gross rent to repay its purchase price. Today the equivalent figure is 17.3 years in CABA and 12.8 years in Córdoba.

That change is big enough to reopen the investment case. The harder question now is whether the return left after costs and risk is still attractive.

Market	Current gross yield	Years of gross rent to repay purchase	What it tells us
Buenos Aires City	5.76%	17.3 years	Rental property works again, although the margin is moderate
Córdoba	7.80%	12.8 years	Much stronger income case
Southern Greater Buenos Aires	6.91%	14.5 years	Higher yield than CABA
Rosario	5.99%	16.7 years	Competitive with CABA

Is a 5.76% rental yield in Buenos Aires actually good?

A 5.76% gross rental yield in Buenos Aires is decent today, but an average deal at that level still leaves little room for mistakes.

Take a US$100,000 apartment generating the citywide average yield. Annual gross rent comes to US$5,760 before anything goes wrong.

Buying the property already increases the real amount of money tied up in the investment. A recent breakdown published by La Nación estimated that buyer-side costs in Buenos Aires can reach roughly 5% to 8% of the transaction value once taxes, notarial work, registration and commissions are included.

With 5% purchase costs, the investor has US$105,000 committed rather than US$100,000. The same US$5,760 of rent now represents 5.49% on the money actually invested. At 8% acquisition costs, the figure drops to 5.33%.

One empty month pushes it down again. At that point, the investment is around 4.9% to 5.0% before maintenance, taxes, management or larger building expenses.

Global Property Guide reaches a similar conclusion from a different angle. Its latest Argentina dataset says net rental yields typically end up around 1.5 to 2 percentage points below gross yields once ordinary ownership costs are included.

So a normal Buenos Aires apartment producing around 5.8% gross can easily become a roughly 4% investment in practice. That can still work, especially with capital appreciation, but it gives us a much clearer threshold: a property approaching 7% gross is far more interesting than one barely reaching 5%.

US$100,000 property	Annual rent received	Capital actually committed	Approximate yield before other expenses
Headline gross yield	US$5,760	US$100,000	5.76%
With 5% buying costs	US$5,760	US$105,000	5.49%
With 8% buying costs	US$5,760	US$108,000	5.33%
One empty month + 5% costs	US$5,280	US$105,000	5.03%
One empty month + 8% costs	US$5,280	US$108,000	4.89%

Are Buenos Aires rents still rising faster than inflation?

Buenos Aires rents are currently losing slightly to inflation, which makes another huge real jump in rental income much harder to assume.

Zonaprop's latest CABA rental index puts the average asking rent for a two-room apartment at ARS 873,668 per month. That is 30.7% higher than a year earlier.

In Argentina, the percentage alone tells us very little. We have to compare it with inflation.

So far this year, Zonaprop's rental index has increased 17.5%, while inflation over the same period has reached 19.2%. New asking rents have therefore fallen about 1.7% in real terms.

The direction is more interesting than the absolute peso number. At the beginning of 2026, new CABA rental contracts were still rising slightly faster than inflation. By the latest reading, that advantage had disappeared.

This also fits the longer trajectory. After Argentina repealed the old Rental Law, asking-rent growth slowed sharply from the extraordinary rates seen during 2023 and early 2024. More properties came back onto the traditional rental market, and landlords suddenly faced more competition for tenants.

For investors buying today, we would assume rents broadly track inflation over time and treat anything materially better as upside. Building a deal around another period of massive real rent increases would be aggressive.

Did Argentina really make rental contracts better for landlords?

Argentina's current rental rules give landlords much more control over the economics of a lease than the previous system did.

The updated Civil and Commercial Code lets the landlord and tenant agree on the duration of the lease. For a permanent residential rental where no term is specified, the default period is two years.

The parties can also choose the currency. A lease may be set in Argentine pesos or in foreign currency, and the tenant cannot force payment in a different currency from the one agreed in the contract.

Rent adjustments are much more flexible as well. The parties can choose a public or private adjustment index compatible with the currency used in the lease.

For an Argentine landlord, this flexibility is economically important. A rent that remains fixed for too long can lose value very quickly during an inflationary period. More frequent contractual adjustments make that problem easier to manage.

Foreign-currency clauses can help in some cases, although they do not magically turn a local residential property into a hard-currency bond. Most ordinary tenants still earn their income in pesos, which limits how far landlords can push dollar-linked rents.

The biggest improvement is the ability to write a contract that fits the actual inflation and currency environment. The old system gave landlords much less room to do that.

Rental-contract issue	Current rule	Why a landlord cares
Contract length	Parties can agree on the duration	Easier to tailor the lease
Default residential term	Two years if no term is specified	Clear fallback rule
Rent currency	Peso or foreign currency can be agreed	More ways to manage currency risk
Rent adjustments	Parties choose the adjustment mechanism	Better protection during inflation
Index used	Public or private index can be agreed	Far more flexibility than under the former system

Did deregulation flood Buenos Aires with rental apartments?

Rental deregulation brought a huge amount of housing back onto the Buenos Aires rental market, which is good for market health and less good for landlords hoping to exploit a shortage.

The reaction began almost immediately after the old Rental Law was repealed. Zonaprop recorded a 62% increase in available CABA rental apartments in the first month after the change.

The increase kept going. By 2024, traditional rental supply was roughly three times higher than around the market low in early 2023.

That helps explain today's softer rent growth. Landlords gained much more contractual freedom at almost the same time that tenants gained far more choice.

For owners, this trade-off is still favorable overall. Properties that had been sitting empty, offered for sale or moved into temporary rentals became viable long-term rentals again. The market started functioning more normally.

The consequence is simple: landlords now have to compete on price and quality. A poorly located apartment with high building fees cannot depend on an extreme citywide shortage to find a tenant at almost any rent.

Are Buenos Aires property prices still cheap today?

Buenos Aires apartments are still below their previous dollar peak, although today's buyer has already missed the very bottom of the market.

Zonaprop currently puts the average asking price in CABA at US$2,471 per square meter. That remains 11.7% below the historical high in its series.

Prices have been moving up again, but lately the pace has become very slow. The citywide average increased only 0.1% in the latest month, 0.9% so far this year and 1.3% over 12 months. That 12-month increase is the weakest Zonaprop has recorded in 28 months.

So the market has recovered without turning into another property boom.

A typical 40 m² studio is currently listed around US$108,000. A 50 m² one-bedroom, called a two-room apartment locally, averages roughly US$131,000, while a 70 m² two-bedroom is around US$179,000.

Used properties can be particularly interesting for rental buyers. Recent Buenos Aires market research reported by La Nación found that a used apartment costs about 32.6% less on average than a newly built unit. In some neighborhoods the gap is even larger.

For a landlord, paying the premium for brand-new construction only works if the property can also command enough additional rent. Often it cannot. A well-kept used apartment bought at the right price can therefore produce a much better yield.

Typical CABA apartment	Size	Current average asking price
Studio	40 m²	US$108,000
One-bedroom / 2 ambientes	50 m²	US$131,000
Two-bedroom / 3 ambientes	70 m²	US$179,000
Citywide apartment average	—	US$2,471/m²

Has the easy part of the Buenos Aires rental recovery already happened?

A large part of Buenos Aires' rental-yield recovery has already happened, so investors buying now need a good individual deal rather than relying on the whole market to reprice for them.

BBVA Research's longer series makes the cycle easy to see. Rental yields fell toward extreme lows around 2020 and then climbed for several years as rents recovered, property prices stayed depressed and the rental regime changed.

That combination was exceptionally favorable to someone buying near the bottom.

Today's picture is calmer. CABA property prices are rising slowly in dollars, while new asking rents have recently increased a little less than inflation. Zonaprop also recorded a slight decline in the city's rent-to-price ratio in its latest monthly reading.

None of this makes the current yield bad. It tells us that the automatic catch-up phase is fading.

A buyer who purchases an average apartment at an average price should expect an average return. To do materially better now, we have to find something the average data misses: a discounted asking price, unusually low building expenses, a layout tenants value, a neighborhood where rents are strong relative to sales prices, or a property that can be improved cheaply.

That is a more demanding investment case than buying during the distressed phase, but also a healthier one.

Is Córdoba actually better than Buenos Aires for rental property?

Córdoba currently beats Buenos Aires clearly on gross rental yield, making it one of the most interesting large Argentine markets for an income-focused buyer.

Zonaprop's latest Córdoba index shows a 7.80% gross annual rent-to-price ratio. The implied repayment period is just 12.8 years of gross rent.

For comparison, CABA needs more than 17 years at current averages.

The gap is too large to dismiss as noise. On a US$100,000 equivalent property, a 7.8% yield means US$7,800 of annual gross rent. A 5.8% property produces around US$5,800. Before expenses, that is roughly US$2,000 more income every year for the same amount of property capital.

Global Property Guide's latest independent city sample points in the same direction, although with a smaller gap. Its dataset puts Córdoba around 5.99% on average, and studios in the city around 6.71%.

The exact percentage changes depending on the properties sampled, but both datasets say the same useful thing: Córdoba deserves to be compared seriously with Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires still has advantages. Its market is much larger, international demand is deeper and resale liquidity is easier to document. Córdoba has to compensate investors for a smaller market, and the neighborhood choice matters enormously.

For someone prioritizing cash flow, though, defaulting automatically to Buenos Aires would leave one of Argentina's strongest current rental markets unexplored.

Where else in Argentina are rental yields attractive now?

Several Argentine markets currently offer around 6% to 7% gross, so Buenos Aires City no longer deserves to be treated as the obvious default.

Southern Greater Buenos Aires is one example. Zonaprop currently estimates a 6.91% gross yield there, equivalent to about 14.5 years of rent to recover the purchase price.

Rosario is closer to CABA. Zonaprop's latest local index shows 5.99% gross and a 16.7-year repayment period.

Global Property Guide's latest national comparison produces somewhat different numbers because it uses its own sample of listed properties. Its Argentina-wide average is 5.46%, with Córdoba around 5.99% and selected Buenos Aires markets often in the 6% range.

The disagreement between datasets is useful. There is no single "Argentina rental yield." Changing the neighborhood, apartment size and sample can move the number by several percentage points.

A 7% apartment in a liquid part of Córdoba can easily be a stronger investment than a 4.5% apartment in an expensive Buenos Aires suburb. A very high yield in a weak micro-location can also be a trap if tenants are difficult to find or buyers disappear when we eventually want to sell.

City averages are therefore a filter. The investment is decided one property at a time.

Market	Latest Zonaprop gross yield	Main reason to look	Main thing to check
Córdoba	7.80%	Strong current income	Neighborhood and resale depth
Southern Greater Buenos Aires	6.91%	Low entry prices and higher yield	Location quality varies sharply
Rosario	5.99%	Competitive entry price	Local demand and liquidity
Buenos Aires City	5.76%	Deepest rental and resale market	Higher purchase price

Which Buenos Aires neighborhoods make the most sense for a landlord?

The highest-yielding Buenos Aires neighborhoods currently sit away from the expensive areas foreign buyers tend to know best.

Zonaprop identifies Lugano and La Boca as the two strongest CABA neighborhoods for investors seeking rental return in its latest index.

That is revealing. The usual international shortlist tends to start with Palermo, Recoleta, Belgrano or Puerto Madero because those areas are familiar, attractive and easy to market to foreigners. Their purchase prices also reflect that popularity.

Rental yield depends on what rent we receive relative to what we paid. A premium address can generate a higher monthly rent and still be a worse rental investment when the purchase price rises even faster.

This does not mean buying the cheapest neighborhood on the map. Tenant demand, safety perceptions, transport, building quality, vacancy and resale liquidity all affect the investment.

The starting question should be different: where do tenants pay enough rent relative to the property's sale price?

For an investor mainly interested in income, that often pushes the search toward less fashionable parts of the city. Someone prioritizing capital preservation, foreign tenants and an easier eventual resale can rationally accept a lower yield in a stronger prime location.

Are small apartments better rental investments in Argentina?

Small Argentine apartments usually produce the cleanest rental economics because tenants pay more rent per dollar of property value than they do for large family units.

The latest Córdoba data from Global Property Guide illustrates the pattern clearly. A studio in its sample produces about 6.71% gross and a one-bedroom about 6.56%. The return then drops to 5.49% for two bedrooms and 5.19% for three bedrooms.

Rosario shows an even steeper pattern in the same dataset. Studios reach about 5.17%, one-bedrooms 4.66%, two-bedrooms 3.65% and three-bedrooms only 3.02%.

We should be cautious about treating those exact percentages as universal market averages, but the direction makes economic sense.

A tenant pays heavily for having an independent kitchen, bathroom and private living space. Adding more square meters and bedrooms raises the purchase price considerably, while the rent tends to rise more slowly.

Small units also serve a wide tenant pool: students, young professionals, couples and people living alone.

The strongest rental deal often looks fairly boring. A compact apartment near transport, universities or employment can outperform a much more impressive property bought for twice the price.

How much do taxes, vacancy and expenses cut Argentine rental returns?

Running costs can easily remove 1.5 to 2 percentage points from an Argentine gross rental yield, so investors should calculate returns from the money left after ownership costs.

Global Property Guide currently estimates that net yields typically sit about 1.5 to 2 points below the gross figures it reports for Argentina.

The exact deduction depends on the property.

An older building can generate surprise repairs or extraordinary condominium charges. A furnished rental adds furniture replacement and utility costs. An investor living abroad may need a local manager. Every empty month removes 8.3% of a full year's rental revenue before any other expense is paid.

Taxes also depend on the owner's circumstances. ARCA treats rental income from Argentine real estate as taxable property income under the applicable regime, with registration, invoicing and declaration obligations depending on the owner and structure.

This is where mediocre investments get exposed.

A 7.5% gross property that loses 2 percentage points to operating friction can still leave roughly 5.5%. A 5% property suffering the same drag drops toward 3%.

That difference is why the entry yield matters so much. Cheap financing is still limited, buying costs are significant, and Argentina gives landlords plenty of other risks to manage. Starting with a thin yield makes the whole investment unnecessarily fragile.

Is Airbnb more profitable than a normal rental in Buenos Aires?

Airbnb can earn more than a long-term rental in Buenos Aires, but the extra revenue comes with substantially more work, expenses and regulation.

The strongest Airbnb case is usually a furnished apartment in a neighborhood with steady international demand, where tourists and medium-term foreign visitors can pay much more per night than a local household would pay under a traditional lease.

Occupancy then becomes the key variable.

A high nightly rate looks impressive until we subtract empty nights, Airbnb fees, utilities, cleaning, furniture, linen, repairs and management. An owner living abroad will usually need someone locally to handle guests and problems, which removes another part of the premium.

Buenos Aires also regulates tourist rentals. The city requires properties offered as temporary tourist accommodation to be registered in the Registro de Propiedades de Alquileres Temporarios Turísticos. Current requirements include proof of ownership, civil-liability insurance and safety declarations. For apartments in buildings, the condominium rules must also be provided, and the activity cannot violate the building's rules.

So an Airbnb comparison has to use net income rather than monthly revenue.

A long-term lease producing a lower headline number can easily win once we price the owner's time, management and vacancy. In Palermo or another tourism-heavy location, short-term renting can still outperform by enough to justify the extra work.

The property itself usually decides which model makes more sense. Buying a mediocre long-term rental and assuming Airbnb will rescue the economics is a weak strategy.

Can you actually resell a Buenos Aires rental property easily today?

Buenos Aires currently has a healthy resale market by recent Argentine standards, which removes one of the biggest concerns investors had during the property slump.

The latest Colegio de Escribanos data recorded 6,051 property transactions in CABA in a single month. That was the strongest monthly figure so far this year.

The longer comparison is more useful. Buenos Aires completed 35,528 transactions during the first seven months of 2026, only 1.8% fewer than during the same period in 2025.

The latest monthly total was also exceptionally strong by historical standards. According to the Colegio de Escribanos, we have to go back to 2008 to find a higher figure for the same month.

Mortgage activity tells a different story. Only 959 of the latest transactions used a mortgage, down 31.2% from a year earlier, and mortgage-backed transactions are down roughly 36% over the first seven months.

Yet total property sales are almost flat.

The current market is holding up despite much weaker mortgage lending. Cash and other non-mortgage buyers are still active enough to keep transactions moving.

There is also upside if mortgage lending recovers again. More accessible financing would expand the pool of potential buyers. We would treat that as potential support for future prices rather than something needed to justify buying today.

Buenos Aires resale indicator	Latest reading	What we learn
Property deeds in latest month	6,051	Strong current transaction volume
Transactions in first 7 months	35,528	Large active market
Change versus previous year	-1.8%	Activity has broadly held
Latest mortgage-backed deals	959	Financing remains a small part of activity
Mortgage-backed deals, first 7 months	About -36% YoY	Current market is functioning despite weaker credit

Is rental property worth buying in Argentina?

Yes. Rental property in Argentina is worth buying today when the property can genuinely produce around 6% to 7% gross or better, while average low-yield deals still require much more caution.

We reach that conclusion from a market that looks very different from the one investors faced several years ago.

Rental yields have recovered dramatically from their lows. Córdoba is currently close to 8% gross in Zonaprop's index, several Greater Buenos Aires markets are around 7%, and CABA remains in the mid-5% range.

Landlords also have far more freedom to negotiate rental contracts, including the currency and adjustment mechanism. At the same time, the return of rental supply has made the market more competitive and brought rent growth back toward inflation.

Property prices add another piece to the case. Buenos Aires apartments remain below their previous dollar peak, while the latest price growth has slowed to barely above 1% over 12 months. Investors are therefore buying after the market bottom but before anything resembling a broad price boom.

Liquidity is also much healthier. More than 35,000 CABA properties changed hands during the first seven months of the year even as mortgage activity fell sharply.

The weak point is the average net return. Purchase expenses alone can add roughly 5% to 8% to the capital required. Ordinary ownership costs can then remove another 1.5 to 2 percentage points from gross yield. A property that starts around 5% gross can become a fairly unimpressive investment surprisingly quickly.

That gives us a practical way to judge the market.

Gross yield at purchase	Our view today	Why
Below 5%	Usually weak as a pure rental investment	Costs leave very little income
5%–6%	Only attractive with another clear advantage	Location, resale or appreciation has to compensate
6%–7%	Good territory	Enough income to absorb normal friction
7%–8%	Strong if the rent is realistic	Current income becomes genuinely attractive
Above 8%	Investigate carefully	Exceptional yield may be hiding vacancy, location or resale problems

For a cash buyer who can hold for several years, the best opportunities today are likely to be fairly ordinary properties: compact units, bought well, with low running costs and strong year-round tenant demand. Córdoba deserves serious attention for income, while Buenos Aires still offers the deepest combination of renters and future buyers.

Expensive prestige apartments are harder to justify when their rent does not keep pace with the purchase price. The same applies to deals that only work after assuming rapid appreciation or another extraordinary rise in real rents.

Argentina has moved beyond the period when almost any rental investment looked broken. It has also moved beyond the easiest part of the rebound.

That leaves a market where good properties can be genuinely attractive, average ones are merely average, and the purchase price now matters more than the Argentina story itself.

Fact-checked and reviewed by our local expert

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Franca Berta

Marketing Specialist, KasaFinder

Franca Berta has a strong understanding of Argentina’s real estate market through her work with KasaFinder, a platform focused on helping international buyers explore property opportunities across Latin America. With local roots and a close view of the market, she brings useful insight into the different cities, property types, and investment opportunities available across Argentina.

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