Chile Forum

book wrote:Ok, thanks.

Condominio and Suburbio are what I was looking for.

And after a little searching on google I am convinced that Chilean real estate is pricey!

The illusion of cheap real estate in Chile is one of the first to be shattered. Right after the "everybody speaks English," "low crime rate," "delightful cuisine," and "clean air" chimeras have been relegated to the Dustbin of Disappointments.

Is it still possible to find a good deal? How is the rental market in those suburbs? Looking for a property that I can easily find a demand from renters. This is a long term goal for me.

Thanks for the replies.

book wrote:Is it still possible to find a good deal? How is the rental market in those suburbs? Looking for a property that I can easily find a demand from renters. This is a long term goal for me.

Thanks for the replies.

How much you want to spend, ill sell you one, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3 stories, prime location, swimming pool, demand for rentals in the area...... it would not rent to a gringo family, but it would to a chilean family, Different taste in houses

Ah.. Should make it clear that I am not in the market yet. Just a long term goal.. Unfortunately not ready to make any purchase! I was hoping I could get a nice (small) modern home for $60,000 but now that seems unrealistic. I wonder if I could build it myself though.

book wrote: I was hoping I could get a nice (small) modern home for $60,000 but now that seems unrealistic. I wonder if I could build it myself though.

No one should attempt to build a house in Chile unless

(1) You speak the local language of the construction trades, which has special names for things (a sledge hammer is a "combo," a pinchbar is a "chuzo," and "no hay" means "we don't have it and we can't get it so please go away." And so on).

(2) You have a two-year supply of extra-strength Valium.

(3) You are willing to give up all hope of getting local labour to show up for work, to do a responsible day's work, refrain from stealing your tools and materials, etc.

For practice, try this. Go to a parking garage that has solid reinforced concrete pillars. Observe the surface texture of that concrete. Now, run your face forcefully into that concrete pillar until your forehead bleeds and your brain has turned to jello. Remember that, compared to building in Chile, that concrete pillar experience will come to be viewed as pleasant.

I don´t know what you idea of nice is but you can get a small house with a back yard big enough for a toy poodle in a gated "subdivided" complex with monthly fees that cover a telephone and uniforms for the 24 hr guard shack along with many other green/brown /beige areas where you kids can play for about 100K USD. The house are all the same type of materials and designs with the exception of size and number of bed & baths. We have a new Unimarc close by but make sure you get your emergency items there during the day cause after work there is only 2 registers open out of 5 and the line backs up to the deli..well, not really a deli...1 or 2 types of cheese and some assorted meat. There are some pools here as well for the summertime but you have to pay another monthly fee in addition to the monthly fee you pay to the barrio you live in as well as the the other monthly fee you pay to the company that owns the whole property that is supposed to cover another guard near the highway and watering of the pavement.. er..grass for the green areas.

Don´t know how much they charge for the tennis courts or football(soccer) field but they do charge for them. I can send you some fotos if you like so you can see what the Chilean idea of a suburb looks like if you want and maybe go in more detail the construction of the houses

Here, you can have my luxury condo in Chile for around $85,000:
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Comes with ski resort, hot springs, view of the lake and mountains.

Funny thing is, I am still partial owner of a condo in Las vegas that is exactly what you are describing. You can have it for the price of replacing the lock on the front door. Seems the bank is not interested in foreclosing, and no one in my family is interested in paying to transfer it because the paperwork is more than its value. Last time I checked, over two years ago, it had a market value of $15,000 us (150,000 at the top of the market, father payed 70,000 for it before the bubble). That was back when there still was a real estate market in Las Vegas. Now you can likely buy your own golf course near vegas for that.

So, literally my shack in the woods, at the end of the World, is worth more than 10 times a condo in Las Vegas in front of swimming pool. I love making that comparison, because all things being equal, they are about exactly the same size (bit more of a yard on the one in Chile).

Now on the surface that seems really absurd, because it is; but, that is what people are actively asking for and getting in Chile without a problem for properties. Any time you put a structure on a property here, the price goes up by almost double no matter what it is.

I put a little shed on 5,000 square meter lot recently and cut the grass. I can raise the price around 30% more than what I paid for the lot a few months earlier, and put it back on the market. No one in Chile would bat an eye at the value of the improvement. The shed cost around 400,000 pesos to build (its a nice shed, and I already had a neighbor ask where I bought it). Point being, I could raise the price like 10 million pesos, get talked down 5 million, and still walk away with way more than I paid for the property + shed.

The only thing I can figure out about what really drives the value of the structure in the market has got to be the hassle of building combined with the low life expectancy of houses in Chile (that includes how an area is viewed socially).

I was reading a book on framing the other day. The author in the intro said that his premise for selecting the techniques in the book was the goal of building a 200 year old house. Would someone please point me to some examples of a 200 year old house in Chile (that were not like rebuilt as some sort of museum project or something)? There are not many, and it is not just the earthquakes. Perhaps some of the German houses around the south might tick the 150+ year old mark, but hay they were built by a bunch of guys from Germany and are built out of Alerce ( natures plastic).

The Chilean real estate market is full of contradictions, like the country as a whole. A significant part of it is over-priced in value-for-the-money terms, relative to the current crashed US housing market. On the other hand, if you know where to look and are very patient, there are tremendous deals to be had, if you compare to most foreign markets. It's not a market for quick flipping, it's a long term, diamond in the rough thing.