Under the Andean skies.

By ADAM THOMSON.
2 August 2003
Financial Times
English
(c) 2003 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved

Last year, Timothy Bottoms went trekking for two weeks in Argentina 's Patagonian wilderness. That did it, says the Californian actor. "Every night we would look up into the star-filled sky and try to see a trail from a passing plane. We never did," he says. "I wanted to buy a place in the southern hemisphere where we could get away from it all. Patagonia is it - and it is good value."

Bottoms was so captivated that he is now set to invest about $200,000 in a small ranch in Argentina's Andean mountains, surrounded by virgin forests, trout-filled lakes and very, very few cars.

Since December 2001, when Argentina sank into the worst economic and social crisis in its history, an increasing number of foreigners have looked to buy land in Argentina . Most, like Bottoms, have done so to escape the stress and frustration typically associated with life in a big US or European city.

Argentina is certainly attractive to those seeking peace and quiet. First, there is the sheer space: it is almost the size of India , yet its population is under 40m - compared with more than 1bn in India . With almost half its inhabitants living in Buenos Aires and outlying areas, much of the remaining territory has some of the lowest population densities in the world. In Patagonia , to the south, there is barely one inhabitant per square kilometre - less than in the Western Sahara .

"You are in total peace here," says Ronald Kirby, a sheep and cattle breeder in Patagonia . "When you are up in the mountains, you can spend a month without seeing a soul."

The second main attraction is one of the most stunning and varied landscapes in the world. El Calafate, near the Patagonian town of Rio Gallegos , has spectacular glaciers 2km wide rising 80 metres above the surface of clear, mountain lakes. In Salta province, bordering Chile , Bolivia and Paraguay , the topography is a cross between the barren, high-altitude plains of Tibet and the Kalahari Desert .

Such natural beauty has enticed the likes of CNN mogul Ted Turner and film star Sylvester Stallone to buy vast retreats in Argentina . In 1997, Turner paid $6.5m for a 4,400-hectare estate close to the fashionable Bariloche ski restort in the south-west. George Soros, the billionaire financier, owns almost 500,000 hectares in Patagonia .

But for individuals with fewer funds, there are still plenty of options. According to Andres Amos, a land broker with IRSA in Buenos Aires who sold Turner a ranch a few years ago, there is rising interest from foreigners: "Most of the people who come are from the US , but there is also strong demand from Switzerland , Britain , France and Spain ," he says. "They only want one thing: a lake-front property with views of mountains, rivers and forest."

Patagonia offers precisely that. The trouble is that in the past year alone, the cost of land has soared by 70 to 80 per cent. Foreign demand for ranches is so fierce, says Amos, that helicopters often fly potential buyers in to view a property as he is showing other clients around. "It feels a little like a goldrush," he says.

Prices vary. But most land brokers agree that $1m can buy you about 2,000 hectares of prime real estate around Bariloche, where the ski resort has all the main amenities, including shopping centres and cinema complexes. If you are prepared to go considerably further south - and further from the luxuries of 21st century living - the same money could buy you a ranch of 40,000 hectares or even more.

For anyone seeking the life of the Argentine landed gentry in the Pampas near Buenos Aires - a little polo in the morning and perhaps a spot of hunting in the afternoon - it is a similar story of rising prices.

While companies such as Benetton, the Italian clothing group, have invested heavily in Argentina 's south others, such as Kellogg, the cereal maker, have begun to invest in the Pampas farmland around Buenos Aires itself. That, together with high international prices for soya, one of the main production crops in the region, has driven land prices up to pre-crisis levels.

"Bargains in the productive properties are few and far between at the moment," says Michael Morehart, a US estate agent working in the resort of San Martin de los Andes .

Mario Arbolave, director of Margenes Agropecuarios, a consultancy in Buenos Aires , agrees: "There is a lot of spare capital which, in an environment of low interest rates and few clear investment opportunities, has been ploughed back into land to take advantage of healthy commodity prices and rising prices of rented farmland."

All this has led some local analysts and estate agents to think that the best time for investing in Argentine landholdings may be coming to an end. Amos disagrees. He insists that Argentina looks like a bargain compared with international prices: "With the money you'd pay for a ranch in Wyoming or Montana , you could get five times the amount of land in Argentina ," he says. "For anyone looking to buy the most beautiful land nature can provide, prices are cheap."