Housing market situation

[GAminer]

yea, I was at the puerto montt airport, saturday afternoon, and it was a zoo. Saturday is almost never busy at that airport in the off season. Friday might be busy. Sunday might be busy. never Saturday.

I am betting by the end of February, prices on houses, parcels, around the lake see at least a 30% increase; even if just from a "hedge your bets and get a second home down south" crowd from Santiago.

In los condes, I know of at least two friends that are Chilean professionals with money, and highly portable skills, that are leaving the country and selling everything (i.e. multiple properties). antidotes, but I have also not been paying that much attention or asking around. just came up in conversation.

The great Santiago exudes has begun. last one to leave, please tern out lights in plaza itialia.

Good riddance I say! Best time of the year to be in Santiago is in February when everyone goes to the beach.

[admin]

The great Santiago exudes has begun. last one to leave, please tern out lights in plaza itialia.

That won't be an issue: there aren't any left!

I think he must mean extinguish the fire

That is right. they ripped them all down the first week.

someone put out the fires then.

[admin]

yep, more refugies.

my wife and I went out for dinner. we struck up a conversation with a couple next to us.

They were from Santiago, had bought 4 hectares outside of town a long time ago to build 4 summer houses someday for them and each of their three kids. kids are all married and have kids. Now they say they have kicked the whole "someday" project in to high gear. meanwhile they also bought an apartment in town, while they oversee the construction of the houses. all their kids are well educated professionals.

They are all leaving Santiago as soon as the houses are completed.

[admin]

The real economic indicator, is something even I did not appreciate.

my sister in law and her husbands buisness in frutillar.

they have this little cloth store. They also do like curtains and rollers for windows. beyond that they also print t-shirts, cups, badges, etc with logos. You would think this would be about as exciting as running a used book store. nooo.

Their little buisness that we all questioned (including them) the viability of it, has been none-stop going since this all started.

first, when people dial back their spending or simply don't want to go to puerto montt or osorno, they start making their own clothes and buying locally. people with money, hire local seamstresses. poor people, do their own.

second, all those "summer homes" suddenly need more permanent interior decorations. rollers and curtains, first things.

third, political upheaval? lot's and lot's of propaganda, by all sides. last week they did a none-stop 36 hour printing session to fill a t-shirt order for a rally.

they hit the trifecta.

the other day we were having lunch. food was a bit late. one of her old customers sent her a photo of the line outside her store. there was 20 people waiting. she had to run to open up. they use to be lucky to get one person a day.

that is on top of their normal summer demand.

hell, being the capitalist pig I am, I am thinking about investing. a a second store in Puerto varas, and some bigger printing machines.

[mem]

Has anyone heard of a chilean landlord with a chilean house for rent basing the pricing in US dollars in his mind and then listing it on the market at the current peso conversion. Then as the peso has weakened over the last couple years he asks more pesos (doing the same conversion 2 years later from usd to peso) to pay the rent..but also allowing the rent to be paid in USD?

[gregf]

Isnt it illegal to price rent in USD?

[41southchile]

Has anyone heard of a chilean landlord with a chilean house for rent basing the pricing in US dollars in his mind and then listing it on the market at the current peso conversion. Then as the peso has weakened over the last couple years he asks more pesos (doing the same conversion 2 years later from usd to peso) to pay the rent..but also allowing the rent to be paid in USD?

Cant say I have heard of that, sounds strange. Should just be in UF.

[paladin]

Has anyone heard of a chilean landlord with a chilean house for rent basing the pricing in US dollars in his mind and then listing it on the market at the current peso conversion. Then as the peso has weakened over the last couple years he asks more pesos (doing the same conversion 2 years later from usd to peso) to pay the rent..but also allowing the rent to be paid in USD?

I dont see any problem with that. If he wants to receive US$ that’s also no problem.

[admin]

Has anyone heard of a chilean landlord with a chilean house for rent basing the pricing in US dollars in his mind and then listing it on the market at the current peso conversion. Then as the peso has weakened over the last couple years he asks more pesos (doing the same conversion 2 years later from usd to peso) to pay the rent..but also allowing the rent to be paid in USD?

I dont see any problem with that. If he wants to receive US$ that’s also no problem.

never ever ever encountered that. legal if you get it in the contract, but mega red flag that something is up.

[PXYC]

I have recently passed by an apartment being sold trough remates Macal, just checked it online and the minimun bid is like 1/4 of market price..

Now I have read here some time ago that licitations at Macal tipically go close or same as market price, but I can't seem to find on the website any historic data of sold apartments on the last 6 month, just to have a feeling of, for similar location, how close to the market that price really is. Does anyone have a link with past auctions final sales prices? I don't find it at Macal website. The location is Providencia.

Any other ideas regarding final sales prices of recent auctions vs. "estallido" will be very welcome.

[admin]

just over on the economics thread, where I posted prices as the auction was going on.

none of the property has been going for anything like market recently, especially in any area there are protests. what is "market" now?

it will be next year before we get any sense of that in places around Santiago and the central region.

not like I was ever very interested in owning something in the central region, but now I really have no interest in it. I am just waiting for the southern chile vacation home / speculators from Santiago to choke and start dumping their properties down south. probably start seeing some of that by next winter.

If I buy anything right now, it is going to be down in the Patagonia. far far from all the stupidity up north.

[snobrd4life]

Just to give a bit of our experience selling real estate during the "estallido"...

We entered into contract with our current tenant to sell our apartment in Nunoa at X price in CLP at the beginning of October 2019. Peso was at 715. Because we are selling from abroad we had to go to the Chilean consulate to sign a POA (shout out to Spencer Global) to facilitate the transaction. Ironically, that was October 18th and we were watching the Santiago Metro being destroyed live on the TV in the waiting area of the consulate.

Over the course of the following few weeks, things were pretty difficult as many of the certificates that are not available over the internet had to be requested in person at municipal offices. Many of those places were either closed or operating on very limited hours during the state of emergency.
Eventually our buyer told us that his bank had doubled the interest rate for his loan due to the uncertainty and that he would not be able to proceed with the transaction due to the unexpected increase in monthly payment vs pre-estallido estimate. At the time, my wife and I weren't sure if he was just bluffing trying to negotiate down the sale price, was no longer interested in buying due to the chaos and uncertainty, or just needed to find another bank to quote a mortgage. Our stomachs were flipping as the peso was blowing past 800 even as the Central Bank was trying to calm things down with little effect. The news broadcasts were reaffirming everybody's belief that Chile was not just suffering a quick cold, but a much more serious illness...

Since our buyer is our current tenant, I had nightmares of him getting cold feet about the deal and then wanting to just continue renting, negotiate a reduction in rent (which we already know is happening everywhere in Santiago), or moving out all together. We decided to be proactive and introduce our buyer to a few bank executives that were recommended to us by some close friends in order to quote a few more rates. Fortunately both banks came back with reasonable numbers. We are in the middle of January right now and fortunately we are still on track to close at the same X price that we agreed upon in the beginning of October. Peso is still not great sitting at ~770, but who knows where it will be by the end of February. We are still not in the clear, but we consider ourselves pretty fortunate that the whole transaction has not fallen completely apart.

Will update once all is said and done.