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SUMMARY
Yes. Rental property is worth buying in Buenos Aires, but only when the deal already works on rental income. The citywide numbers are decent again; the real opportunity is in apartments bought at a strong initial yield rather than in betting on another broad property boom.
The landlord market has changed a lot since DNU 70/2023. Owners and tenants can negotiate lease duration, adjustment mechanisms and currency much more freely, and rental supply came back quickly after years of shortage.
That recovery has also made the market more competitive. The return of thousands of units helped normalize long-term renting, but it also removed the scarcity that had previously allowed landlords to push rents very aggressively.
The citywide gross rental yield is now around 5.76%. That is good enough to make Buenos Aires investable again, but it is not generous once closing costs, vacancy, repairs and other friction are included.
Neighborhood selection changes the picture completely. Villa Lugano is around 10.1% gross, La Boca 7.7% and Nueva Pompeya 7.4%, while Palermo, Núñez and Puerto Madero sit closer to 3.5%-4.7%.
That spread is mainly a purchase-price story. Premium areas command much higher rents, but their sale prices rise even more, so investors often pay a large amount for location without getting a proportional increase in long-term income.
Rents are still rising in pesos, yet they are currently trailing inflation. That makes another huge real-rent repricing a weak assumption and puts more pressure on the initial purchase yield to carry the investment.
Property prices are not providing an obvious backup plan either. Buenos Aires apartment prices are still below their historical dollar peak, but recent growth is slow and transaction volumes are no longer accelerating strongly enough to justify buying a weak rental for appreciation alone.
Operating details matter more than they look. High expensas, amenity-heavy buildings and new-build premiums can destroy the economics of an otherwise attractive apartment, especially when the tenant's total monthly housing bill becomes difficult to push higher.
Our conclusion is fairly simple: around 7% gross or more, Buenos Aires becomes genuinely interesting for long-term rental investors. Around the 5.76% city average, the deal needs discipline. Below 5%, there should be a very specific reason to accept the weaker cash flow.
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Why is Buenos Aires rental property worth looking at again?
Buenos Aires rental property is worth looking at again because the landlord economics have improved dramatically since the rental rules changed, although the easiest part of that recovery has probably already happened.
The turning point was DNU 70/2023. It gave owners and tenants much more freedom to agree on contract length, rent adjustments and the currency used in the lease. The previous regime had pushed many owners away from conventional long-term rentals, so this was not a small change.
The response was immediate. Zonaprop's rental-supply index had fallen to roughly 59 in 2022 and reached another low in early 2023. After deregulation, advertised supply jumped 62% in a single month in January 2024 and later climbed above 170. Even after coming down from that peak, the available stock remained almost three times its early-2023 low at the beginning of 2026.
At the same time, rental yields recovered. Zonaprop's latest reading puts the citywide gross return at 5.76%, while several cheaper neighborhoods are above 7% and Villa Lugano is above 10%.
Buenos Aires has a functioning rental investment market again. The harder question is whether current purchase prices still leave enough return after costs and risk.
| Buenos Aires rental market | Earlier situation | More recent situation | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rental supply index | Below 60 around the crisis | Reached above 170 after reform | Owners returned |
| Immediate supply response | — | +62% in January 2024 | Very strong reaction |
| Lease duration | Heavily constrained | Negotiable | More flexibility |
| Adjustment formula | Restricted | Negotiable | Easier inflation protection |
| Lease currency | Less flexible | Can be agreed by the parties | Better FX flexibility |
| Citywide gross yield | Depressed during the old regime | 5.76% currently | Rental economics recovered |
Are Buenos Aires rental yields actually attractive now?
Buenos Aires rental yields are decent today, but the 5.76% citywide average is only attractive if the property is inexpensive to operate and bought without overpaying.
According to Zonaprop's latest CABA index, an investor currently needs about 17.3 years of gross rent to recover the purchase price. That is 6.5% less time than a year earlier, so the yield recovery is real.
Still, 5.76% is gross. It comes before vacancy, repairs, owner-paid expenses, insurance, taxes, transaction costs and management. A property bought at the city average can easily end up closer to a 4%-5% return on the actual money invested.
The recent trajectory is also worth watching. Citywide gross yield reached 5.89% earlier in the year before easing to 5.76%, so we would not assume rental returns will simply keep expanding from here.
The current average is good enough to make Buenos Aires interesting. It is not high enough to make an average apartment an automatic buy.
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Are Buenos Aires rents still rising fast?
Buenos Aires rents are still going up in pesos, but they are no longer rising fast enough to give landlords meaningful real rent growth.
Zonaprop currently puts the average monthly rent for a two-room apartment at ARS 873,668. Asking rents have risen 17.5% so far in 2026 and 30.7% over 12 months.
Both figures are below inflation. Zonaprop calculates roughly 19.2% inflation over the comparable 2026 period, leaving rents down about 1.7% in real terms. The 12-month comparison tells a similar story.
That is a major change from the huge repricing that followed deregulation. Owners can now write much more flexible contracts, yet tenants still have a limit on what they can pay. Once thousands of apartments returned to the market, landlords also had more competition.
So we would not build an investment case around another enormous jump in real rents. Much of the post-reform adjustment has already been absorbed.
| Measure | Recent change | Relevant comparison | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|---|
| CABA rents in 2026 | +17.5% | Inflation ~+19.2% | Real rents slightly lower |
| CABA rents over 12 months | +30.7% | Inflation somewhat higher | No real rent boom |
| Latest monthly rise | +1.6% | — | Nominal growth continues |
| Average two-room rent | ARS 873,668 | — | High tenant burden |
| Gross rental yield | 5.76% | 5.89% earlier in the year | Yield improvement has paused |
Has too much rental supply returned to Buenos Aires?
Buenos Aires has plenty more rental supply than it did during the crisis, and that extra competition is already limiting how hard landlords can push rents.
The scale of the reversal is striking. Zonaprop's rental-supply index fell below 60 around the worst period of the old rental regime. After deregulation it eventually moved above 170.
That recovery was healthy. Tenants had more properties to choose from, while owners once again had a legal framework under which many were willing to rent long term.
For investors, though, scarcity is no longer doing the heavy lifting. The latest market readings still show a large rental stock by the standards of the 2022-2023 shortage, while rents are trailing inflation.
Those two developments fit together. Rental property can work in Buenos Aires today, but we would underwrite it as a competitive market rather than assume tenants will accept almost any rent increase.
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Are Buenos Aires apartments still cheap in dollars?
Buenos Aires apartments still trade below their previous dollar peak, but the city is much less obviously cheap than it was a few years ago.
Zonaprop currently puts the average apartment asking price at USD 2,471 per square meter. That is 11.7% below the historical high in its series and roughly back around the level seen in 2021.
A typical 40 m² studio is now advertised at about USD 108,000. A 50 m² two-room apartment costs around USD 131,000, while a 70 m² three-room unit is around USD 179,000.
The 11.7% gap from the old peak is useful context. Returning to that peak would imply roughly 13% upside from current levels. Nice to have, but nowhere near enough to justify buying a poor rental property on its own.
Neighborhood differences are far larger than the citywide discount. Puerto Madero exceeds USD 6,100/m², Palermo is around USD 3,400/m², while Villa Lugano is close to USD 1,050/m².
The real opportunity sits in the spread between neighborhoods and individual properties. Calling Buenos Aires as a whole “cheap” hides most of what actually determines the investment return.
Are Buenos Aires property prices taking off again?
Buenos Aires property prices are barely moving in dollars right now, so we would not buy a weak rental property expecting appreciation to save the investment.
Zonaprop's latest index shows apartment prices up only 0.1% during the latest month, 0.9% in 2026 and 1.3% over 12 months. That annual increase is the weakest in 28 months.
Actual transaction data gives a similar picture. The Colegio de Escribanos recorded 35,528 CABA property sales during the first seven months of 2026, 1.8% fewer than during the same period in 2025. The latest month still produced 6,051 deeds, making it the strongest month of the year, but transactions were 9% below the same month a year earlier.
This is still a healthy market by recent historical standards. The Colegio de Escribanos notes that the latest two comparable mid-year monthly readings were among the strongest in many years.
What we do not see yet is accelerating prices alongside accelerating transaction volumes. A cash-flow-first strategy is much easier to defend than a bet on another rapid dollar repricing.
| Current sales-market measure | Latest reading | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Average apartment price | USD 2,471/m² | +1.3% YoY |
| Price growth in 2026 | +0.9% | Slow |
| Gap from historical peak | -11.7% | Still below peak |
| Sales, first seven months | 35,528 | -1.8% YoY |
| Latest monthly sales | 6,051 | -9% YoY |
| Mortgage-backed deeds in latest month | 959 | -31.2% YoY |
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Which Buenos Aires neighborhoods have the best rental yields?
The best rental yields in Buenos Aires are currently concentrated in cheaper neighborhoods, with Villa Lugano far ahead of Palermo, Núñez and Puerto Madero.
The latest Zonaprop-based rankings put Villa Lugano at 10.1% gross, La Boca at 7.7% and Nueva Pompeya at 7.4%. Several other less expensive areas, including Floresta, Balvanera, San Cristóbal and San Nicolás, sit around 7%.
At the other end, Puerto Madero produces only about 3.5% gross. Palermo is around 4.6%, Núñez 4.7% and Belgrano 4.8%.
The gap comes mainly from purchase prices. Puerto Madero rents are high, but a buyer pays more than USD 6,100/m². Palermo is also expensive at roughly USD 3,400/m². A Villa Lugano apartment costs only around USD 1,050/m².
Rents do not fall by anything close to the same proportion. Paying more for a prestigious address currently buys the investor less income for every dollar invested.
There is another useful detail hidden in the neighborhood averages. La Nación's latest breakdown by apartment size shows La Boca two-room apartments yielding around 9.6%, Constitución about 8.9%, Villa Lugano roughly 8.4% and Barracas around 8.3%. Investors willing to look beyond the obvious expatriate neighborhoods have a much larger opportunity set than the citywide 5.76% figure suggests.
| Neighborhood | Approx. gross yield | Current profile |
|---|---|---|
| Villa Lugano | 10.1% | Highest citywide cash yield |
| La Boca | 7.7% | Strong rent-to-price ratio |
| Nueva Pompeya | 7.4% | Strong rent-to-price ratio |
| Floresta | 7.3% | Above-average yield |
| Balvanera | 7.2% | Above-average yield |
| Palermo | 4.6% | Expensive relative to rent |
| Núñez | 4.7% | Expensive relative to rent |
| Puerto Madero | 3.5% | Very low long-term yield |
Is Villa Lugano really the best place to buy a rental property?
Villa Lugano is currently the best Buenos Aires neighborhood on headline yield, but we would not automatically rank it as the best overall investment.
The 10.1% gross yield is real. It comes from an unusually low acquisition price rather than extraordinary rents. At roughly USD 1,050/m², property there costs less than one-third of Palermo's average and about one-sixth of Puerto Madero's.
That price gap gives Villa Lugano a huge cash-flow advantage. It also tells us what kind of investment we are making. Demand is much more local, the pool of international buyers is smaller, and future resale performance does not have to resemble Palermo or Belgrano.
A buyer focused almost entirely on rental income should study Villa Lugano seriously. Someone who cares about resale liquidity, foreign tenant demand, personal use or long-term desirability may accept a lower yield elsewhere.
The most interesting part of the market may actually sit between the extremes. Areas such as Balvanera, San Cristóbal, San Nicolás, Floresta and Parque Patricios currently offer yields around 7% without requiring investors to pay premium-neighborhood prices.
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Are Palermo and Puerto Madero worth buying for long-term rent?
Palermo is hard to justify today as a pure long-term rental investment, while Puerto Madero is even harder at a gross yield around 3.5%.
Puerto Madero shows how misleading high rents can be. The neighborhood has some of the city's most expensive leases, but buyers also pay more than USD 6,100/m². Put those two numbers together and the rental return falls to the bottom of the CABA ranking.
Palermo has better economics, though its roughly 4.6% gross yield still leaves little room after closing costs, vacancy and maintenance.
There are perfectly good reasons to own property in these neighborhoods. Palermo has broad residential and tourist demand. Puerto Madero attracts wealthy domestic and international buyers. Both can make sense for personal use, capital preservation or certain short-term-rental strategies.
For a buyer whose main objective is monthly long-term rental income, we would look elsewhere first. The current yield gap with neighborhoods around 7%-10% is simply too large to ignore.
What return can a Buenos Aires landlord realistically keep?
A normal Buenos Aires long-term rental bought around the city average probably leaves roughly 4%-5% a year before the investor's personal tax situation, rather than the advertised 5.76% gross yield.
Take the typical Zonaprop two-room apartment priced around USD 131,000. At the citywide gross yield, the implied annual rent is roughly USD 7,550 when rent and value are converted consistently.
The investor has to put more than USD 131,000 to work. Stamp duty, brokerage, notarial charges, registration and other closing expenses can add several percentage points to the acquisition. The exact burden depends on the transaction, but a 5%-8% range is a reasonable amount to investigate before buying.
Then comes the property itself. One empty month removes 8.3% of annual rent. Repairs, insurance, extraordinary building charges and miscellaneous owner costs remove more.
Using a 6% acquisition-cost assumption, our simple underwriting puts an efficiently run city-average property around 5.2% on total invested capital. One month of vacancy plus moderate operating leakage brings it close to 4.6%. A more conservative case falls to roughly 4.1%.
These are sensitivity calculations rather than published market forecasts, but they show why a small difference in the purchase yield has a large effect on the final result.
| Example underwriting | Vacancy | Other income leakage | Acquisition costs | Approx. return on total capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Efficient property | 0 months | 5% | 6% | ~5.2% |
| Normal case | 1 month | 8% | 6% | ~4.6% |
| Conservative case | 2 months | 10% | 6% | ~4.1% |
| Advertised citywide gross yield | None | None | None | 5.76% |
As seen above, this changes the neighborhood comparison quite dramatically. Starting at 7%-10% gross gives the landlord room for normal friction. Starting at 3.5%-4.7% leaves very little.
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Can high building expenses ruin a Buenos Aires rental investment?
High building expenses can make an otherwise attractive Buenos Aires apartment much harder to rent profitably, especially in newer buildings loaded with amenities.
Propio analyzed 1,569 CABA rental listings in 2026 and found median monthly expensas of roughly ARS 180,000, equal to about 22% of the advertised rent. For two-room apartments, the median was around ARS 172,000.
Tenants commonly pay ordinary building expenses, so investors should not simply subtract the full amount from landlord income. Yet tenants care about their total monthly housing bill. An ARS 874,000 apartment with roughly ARS 170,000 of building charges already costs more than ARS 1 million before utilities.
That puts a ceiling on the rent an owner can realistically ask.
Amenities make the problem worse. Propio found that buildings with amenities carried expenses per square meter almost 22% higher than buildings without them.
For long-term rentals, we would generally prefer a simple building with sensible maintenance costs over a tower with a pool, gym, full-time staff and services that inflate the tenant's monthly bill.
Should investors buy new apartments in Buenos Aires?
Older, well-kept apartments often make more sense for rental investors today because new construction is expensive and tenants do not always pay enough extra rent to compensate.
Construction costs measured in dollars remain unusually high. Zonaprop's latest data puts the cost of building at around 3.4 times the October 2020 low and roughly 49% above the 2012-2025 average.
Those costs eventually appear in the asking prices of new developments.
New buildings can still win when they have an exceptional location, low operating costs or a layout tenants strongly prefer. They may also require less maintenance during the first years.
But an investor should be suspicious of paying a large premium simply because a unit is new. If an older apartment one or two streets away rents for almost the same amount and costs much less to buy, the older unit can produce a much better return.
For income investing these days, purchase discipline matters more than having the newest lobby.
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Does Argentina's currency make Buenos Aires rental property too risky?
Currency risk is still one of the biggest weaknesses of Buenos Aires rental property because apartment values are heavily dollarized while much of the ordinary rental market still runs in pesos.
The legal environment has improved. Current rules allow the parties to agree on the lease currency and choose how rents are adjusted. Argentina has also removed important foreign-exchange restrictions compared with the previous system.
That gives landlords more tools to protect themselves.
The economic mismatch has not disappeared. An apartment may be worth USD 130,000 while its monthly rent is collected in pesos. If the peso weakens faster than the rent adjusts, dollar income falls even while the tenant is paying more pesos.
A foreign investor should therefore look at rental yield in the currency that matters to them, rather than being impressed by nominal peso rent increases.
This also strengthens the case for buying at a high initial yield. A 7%-10% gross return gives us much more room to absorb currency swings than a 3.5% property in Puerto Madero.
Is Airbnb better than long-term renting in Buenos Aires?
Airbnb and other short-term rentals can beat long-term rent in some Buenos Aires neighborhoods, but investors have to underwrite them as an operating business rather than assume the higher nightly rate becomes pure profit.
Tourist rentals in CABA currently have to be registered with the city. The registration is free but mandatory, and owners must provide proof of ownership, comply with safety requirements, hold civil-liability insurance and provide the building's co-ownership rules when applicable. The city simplified the registration process in 2025, so the administrative hurdle is manageable.
The economics vary far more than long-term rent. Palermo, Recoleta, San Telmo and parts of the city center have strong tourist demand, which can make short stays more appealing than the weak long-term yields seen in some premium areas.
Revenue alone gives a poor comparison. Short-term units need furniture, utilities, cleaning, guest communication, frequent maintenance and platform or management fees. Occupancy also changes during the year.
For a Palermo apartment earning only around 4.6% gross on a conventional lease, short-term rental deserves investigation. For a cheaper apartment already producing 7%-10% gross from a normal tenant, taking on hotel-like work may be unnecessary.
The right strategy depends heavily on the apartment and neighborhood rather than on a citywide rule.
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Is rental property worth buying in Buenos Aires today?
Yes, rental property is worth buying in Buenos Aires today, but we would only buy when the deal already works on rental income; relying on another property boom makes the investment much weaker.
Several parts of the market now support that conclusion. Rental rules are far friendlier to owners than they were during the old rental-law period. Long-term rental supply has normalized. The citywide gross yield has recovered to 5.76%. Transactions remain at historically healthy levels even though the latest seven-month total is slightly below last year.
At the same time, the easy post-crisis upside is fading. As pointed out above, asking rents are currently rising more slowly than inflation, while apartment prices are up only 1.3% in dollars over 12 months. We see little evidence today that a broad surge in property values is about to compensate investors who accept weak rental returns.
The neighborhood numbers make the decision much clearer. Villa Lugano is around 10.1% gross, La Boca 7.7%, Nueva Pompeya 7.4%, and several other neighborhoods cluster near 7%. Those returns are high enough to justify looking closely at Buenos Aires despite currency risk, closing costs and Argentina's more complicated economic environment.
Palermo at roughly 4.6%, Núñez at 4.7% and Puerto Madero at 3.5% are much harder to defend for ordinary long-term renting. Buying there can still work when the investor wants personal use, short-term rental income or exposure to a premium location, but the conventional rental cash flow is weak.
Around 7% gross or more, we think Buenos Aires becomes genuinely interesting. Around the 5.76% city average, the property has to be bought and operated carefully. Below 5%, we would want a very specific reason for accepting such a low return.
That is where the Buenos Aires rental market stands now: there are good investments available, but the opportunity comes from choosing the right apartment at the right price rather than simply owning property in the city.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis tests whether rental property in Buenos Aires is worth buying based on the economics available to an investor now. We compare the legal framework, rental supply, rent growth, gross yields, purchase prices, recorded transactions, neighborhood-level returns, building expenses, construction costs, currency exposure and the long-term-versus-short-term rental choice.
Legal changes are anchored in DNU 70/2023, its official publication in the Boletín Oficial, and the current Civil and Commercial Code provisions governing leases. The previous framework is checked against Law 27,551 so the change in landlord flexibility is not treated as anecdotal.
For the market itself, the main backbone is Zonaprop's current CABA data on asking rents, gross rental yields, sale prices, and the full July 2026 CABA report. Historical supply comparisons use Zonaprop's post-reform rental-supply analysis and its historical rental-supply index.
We compare nominal rent growth with official inflation rather than reading peso rent increases on their own. The inflation benchmark comes from INDEC's consumer-price data. Recorded sales and mortgage activity come from the Colegio de Escribanos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, so transaction activity is based on deeds rather than asking-market sentiment.
Gross yields are kept separate from what an owner may realistically retain. The 5%-8% acquisition-cost range and the vacancy and operating-leakage cases are underwriting sensitivities, not published forecasts. They are used to show how a 5.76% headline yield can compress once the investor includes total capital committed and normal rental friction.
Operating-cost analysis uses Propio's 2026 study of 1,569 CABA rental listings, while construction-cost context is cross-checked against INDEC's official Greater Buenos Aires construction-cost statistics. Neighborhood and apartment-type yield comparisons are supplemented by La Nación's August 2026 breakdown.
For short-term rentals, registration requirements are checked against the City of Buenos Aires registration procedure, the city's tourism guidance, CABA Law 6,255, and the 2025 resolution simplifying the registration process. Currency and foreign-exchange context is checked against the BCRA's explanation of the newer FX framework.
The final judgment does not come from one attractive number. We compare yield with acquisition price, rent growth with inflation and supply, appreciation with transaction activity, and headline returns with the costs and risks required to earn them. That is why the conclusion is deliberately neighborhood-specific: a Buenos Aires rental that starts near 7%-10% gross is a very different investment from one starting near 3.5%-5%.
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