IL Postcard

Where to Find Colonial Homes for $80,000

Date: 04/23/2008

Thursday, April 24, 2008
Salto, Uruguay

Read more about Uruguay in International Living Postcards —your daily escape

I’ve seen some great places to live during my trip around Uruguay, but Salto exceeded my expectations by a mile. This riverfront city really was a pleasant surprise.

Salto is Uruguay’s second largest city and the heart of the country’s produce industry, with huge citrus farms throughout the area. Built on a series of rolling hills, it sits on the banks of the Uruguay River, which separates Uruguay from Argentina. (Downstream, the Uruguay River becomes Río de la Plata before passing Buenos Aires.)

Salto is well known for the natural hot springs, particularly in the nearby town of Daymán. It prospers from the continual flow of tourists from around Uruguay and Argentina who come to visit the springs. The city is bright and cheerful, and has a bustling, clean downtown shopping district. In some ways it’s like a miniature version of Montevideo. In fact, we found most of the same big-city stores that you’ll find in Montevideo.

The parks and plazas are well kept, and Salto’s waterfront area provides a green, pleasant park-like setting in which to spend an afternoon.

We sampled a number of fine restaurants, and found we could normally enjoy a good dinner for two, with appetizers and a decent table wine, for $25. That’s about 30% less than you’d spend in Montevideo, and half of what it would cost you in Punta del Este. In fact, the overall cost of living seems noticeably lower here.

On the property front, I found Salto to be a gold mine when it comes to colonial-style homes.

We first visited a 4,000-square-foot, four-bedroom colonial, conveniently located near the business district on Calle Brasil. The house needed some work, but nothing major as far as I could tell. The 20-foot ceilings and large fireplace in the living room will be impressive once the house is spruced up. The asking price is $80,000. Contact Carolina Cattani of Cánepa y Cánepa for more information. (Total taxes are approximately $1,000 per year at today’s exchange rates.)

The best-value home I’ve seen on this trip is an old art-deco-style home in perfect condition, with stained glass windows and original antique painted floor tiles. It has six bedrooms, a three-car garage, a courtyard, and took up the depth of the entire block. The back of the property adjoined Salto’s old central market. The asking price is $160,000.

A 2,700-square-foot house right on the central park with seven bedrooms, two baths, and a courtyard had an asking price of $170,000. A small house in a working-class neighborhood (rather than downtown) will start at around $45,000.

The universities in Salto not only serve the immediate area, but also many rural areas in the north of Uruguay…along with nearby zones in Argentina and Brazil. At this time there is a critical shortage of student housing, and plenty of opportunity for those who want to provide it. For example, we looked at one huge home with 17 bedrooms (and two courtyards) that would be perfect for such a project. It needed lots of work, but the asking price was only $85,000.

The realtor I’d recommend in Salto is Cánepa y Cánepa, located at Calle Uruguay 1501. I found the people there to be honest and hardworking, and they had a great selection of properties.

If your dream is to own a colonial-style home, but you’d like to do it at a reasonable price in a First-World country, then the riverfront city of Salto is definitely worth a look.

Lee Harrison
Roving Latin America Editor

Editor’s note: Lee spills the beans on some more secret locations and valuable real estate contacts he discovered on his trip throughout Uruguay in our next issue of International Living magazine.

Read related articles:

- A Seaside Apartment for $75,000 in This Friendly Beach Town

- Your Own Waterfront Home in Uruguay for $32,000

- Where in the World Is Lee Harrison?