The latest political scandal revolves around whether It is legal and ethical that government officials take mortgage loanss of the state bank. Luis Caputo has already made his position clear: how the credit was taken under market conditionsthere is nothing reprehensible. But there is another way to judge the conduct of officials: what does it say about your own expectations about the progress of the economic plan?
Given that the credits were taken at UVA -what’s next approximately the rate of inflation-, but that the real estate market moves in dollars, the decisions of officials They give clues about how much confidence they have in the plan that they themselves design and advertise.
For case, Felipe Núñez, one of the most active team members in the face of communication on social networks, host of the program “The three anchors” on the streaming channel “Carajo” and, in addition, director of BICE, took into account February 2025 a loan for $373 million. Considering the price of the dollar that at that time the Nation Bankis equivalent to some US$340,000.
At that time, that money was enough to buy about 160 square meters, taking the average value that they survey monthly. Ucema and the Re/Max real estate agency. In the 14 months since then, the purchasing power of that loan has not changed significantly.
Instead, What did change is the amount of the debtmeasured in dollar terms. Between February 2025 and today, UVA became more expensive by 36.5%while the dollar did 31%. This implies that, for Núñez, the real amount of his debt, measured in dollars, became 4% more expensive in 14 months.
The Secretary of Finance fared worse, Federico Furiasewhich took out a loan in August, at the time of greatest volatility prior to the elections. The $367 million were equivalent, then, to US$278,000. But in the nine-month period since then, there has been a high variation of the UVA compared to the dollar.
To put it in numbers, inflation of 19.5% accumulated, while the dollar, after the cooling of recent months, only accumulates an “end-to-end” variation of 7%. Consequently, Furiase’s dollarized debt is today 11.5% more expensive.
Arguing with money
Did the officials make a business by taking that loan? That answer depends on the point of view of who is judging it. Since these are people who earn a salary in pesos, it is likely that they came out “tied.” At least, that’s what some of the activists who call themselves “UVA mortgages” and that they reported having been scammed, because They pay more importance to the nominal increase in the quota than to the balance of the debt and the value of the property in the market.
If they had to sell their property in a hurry, then they are losing, because your debtmeasured in dollars, has grown much faster than the valuation of the square meter -although this price is in an upward trend-.
If someone, however, supposes that the economic plan is not sustainable and that at some point in the near future a devaluation jump will occur, then The debt will shrink measured in US currencybut it will surely become higher measured in terms of salaries.
Ultimately, the way to win with this credit system is to maintain confidence that the exchange rate will remain stable, that inflation will decrease and that salaries will continue to grow – both in real terms and measured in dollars.. If this were the situation, then the time will come when the debt for the borrowed capital will already be stable in US currency, while the nominated quota in UVAs -which is paid in pesos- will represent an increasingly smaller portion of the salary.
In other words, it could be interpreted that, by requesting these loans, Caputo’s team officials were demonstrating with their own money and not with statements their level of confidence in the plan. The signals sent so far indicate that the priority will continue to be lowering the CPI even though this could mean a cooling of activity.
Of course, someone might argue that, if officials were so confident in their own plan, Then they would directly take on debt in dollars, trusting that the payment would gradually shrink as their salary grows in US currency. The truth is that there were already experiences in this sense in the ’90s, when “one to one” convertibility was in effect between peso and dollar. But today’s regulatory framework is not the same, and an individual who does not generate income in dollars He cannot take loans of that magnitude, even as a civil servant.
What if everything goes wrong?
Of course, the UVA scheme can also leave profits if everything goes wrong. But in this case, what should happen is a shipwreck of the economic program, with a devaluation jump and inflationary contagion. If the dollar rises much faster than the UVA, then what will happen is a “liquidation” of the debt.
This would happen because UVA, instead of buying US$1.31, like today, would lower its value. In that case, if the debtor has dollars saved, he can take the opportunity to settle with the bank for a lower value than what was lent to him at the time. Or you can sell the property, at a higher value than it would have been given before the devaluation.
They are not impossible situations. In fact, they happened many times, the last one being after the devaluation crisis of 2018, during the Macrista government, which at its best, at the end of 2017, even granted mortgage loans for an amount of US$600 million per month.
But of course, no one takes a loan thinking that everything will go wrong. At most, once the crisis is already unleashed, those with better financial reflexes can take advantage to make a difference in their favor.
An endless debate
What underlies this political discussion is an old theoretical debate: whether in an economy as unstable as Argentina’s A fixed or variable rate mortgage system is better. From the banks there is no doubt: the fixed rate is unviable, and the proof is in the virtual disappearance of mortgage credit during the Kirchnerist phase.
“If there is no system like the UVA, the unfriendly flip side would be for banks to ask savers to leave fixed terms for many years, at the rate they ask for.. How much would that rate be? Has no answer, Because in Argentina they either ask you for a variable rate or they tell you ‘pay me 1,000% annually because you never know if the country explodes. Then I later turn around and say the same thing to whoever comes to ask for a loan,” says an executive from a private bank who was in charge of analyzing problematic cases after the devaluation crisis that occurred starting in 2018.
And the data on which the defenders of this system rely is that, even with the crisis that represented the tumultuous end of the Macrista administration – which made the fee more expensive in terms of income – the debtors continued to pay, with a reduced default of only 2%.
Among those who claimed to have been harmed, there were cases such as those who argued that a debt cut was justified because, due to the effect of inflation, their debt balance in pesos had multiplied 6.5 times. The answers were not long in coming: that same balance, measured in dollars, had shrunk by a third, while the value of the property had remained stable.
Of course the debate You will never reach an agreement: For those who only focus on the quota and the relationship with salary income, the liquefaction of the debt balance measured in dollars will never be a consolation. But, on the other side, There are arguments to suggest that a UVA debtor was not much more harmed than someone who must pay a rent.
