Finding an Apartment in Córdoba, Argentina

I’ve landed in Córdoba, Argentina and objective numero uno is finding a long-term place to stay.

Living in a hotel still feels like a vacation and until I get settled into an apartment of my own it won’t feel like real life.

Before leaving for this country I put in a good amount of work trying to secure a place and found one that was incredible. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

My search started with the local newspaper (La Voz inmuebles) which has classified ads online like Craigslist but with less features and less crazy people. Here you can find temporary apartments for rent although the quality of the photos listed on this site baffles me. While most have a few grainy photos of one room in the apartment, many are listed without photos making the search from abroad quite difficult.

However I did find a very nice 1-bedroom apartment in Nueva Córdoba for a reasonable price. My girlfriend went to see it and confirmed it’s awesomeness so I told her to put down the deposit.

Hours before leaving San Francisco I got this message from my girlfriend – bb plz call home as soon as u can… you think the things are bad seems like can be even worse.

We lost the place.

While in route to pay the deposit the owner called and said someone else rented it. We were back at square one.

Here are the options we considered for finding an apartment in Córdoba –

AirBnB

Rooms on AirBnB are overpriced for Córdoba, Argentina. There’s better deals to be had with the real estate companies but you need to speak a little Spanish and/or have contacts already in Córdoba that can help you out. If you posses neither of those AirBnB is a fine option, just be prepared to pay a lot more.

Everything on here was very expensive (US $50-100 per night) which would end up being more than what I pay for my place in San Francisco, one of the world’s most expensive rental markets.

Interestingly enough if people are actually renting their places for this much on AirBnB and getting business, a rental property in Córdoba might work financially. Need to investigate this more.

Inmobiliarias – Real Estate Companies

This was the best option. A Google search of “inmobiliarias en Nueva Cordoba” produces plenty of these real estate companies who have apartments for sale and for rent. We used the poor photos to rule out some places and narrow the results down to the list that met our requirements –

• 1 Bedroom / 1 Bath
• Spacious
• Balcony or Terrace
• Strong Wifi
• Security
• Nueva Córdoba

We met with Fiorela from an inmobiliaria and she showed us several different apartments. However each was smaller than the next. Too cramped for my liking especially given that I will be working from my apartment. We explained to her that we’re looking for something bigger but she didn’t have anything so we parted ways.

Another day of looking at tiny apartments passed and panic began to set in a little as I was afraid we lost the best apartment in Nueva Córdoba and would have to settle for a tiny shoe box for about the same price. Meanwhile my tab at the hotel was starting to add up with each night I stayed.

Then the next day we saw a nice spacious place in the heart of Nueva Córdoba across from Patio Olmos – the large shopping mall here. Eager not to lose this place we quickly put down the deposit to secure it.

Ironically when we went to this immobiiaria to pay the deposit and sign the contracts – there sat Fiorela! Perdóname Fiorela but when we mentioned we were looking for a larger place did it not occur to offer us this apartment? I bet this inmobiliaria has 5-8 apartments, they can’t be that hard to keep track of.

Anyways we were able to secure a apartment for a bit more than I was expecting to pay however it feels good to have a place of our own.

Photos of the place we got along with the roof deck/BBQ/pool and great view –