The Government expects that starting this Monday, an influx of dollars from the capital whitewashing will begin to be noticeable in the economy, which could bolster the reserves. It is confident that these funds will be used for the real estate market, as learned by the Argentine News Agency. This is because more than US$20 billion that had been immobilized in the Special Asset Regularization Accounts (CERA) can now be used freely. These are funds from savers who declared amounts over US$100,000 and had to keep them deposited or invested in the alternatives that the externalization regime allowed to avoid higher penalties. Since this money can now be withdrawn, the real estate sector is waiting for a portion of it to be channeled into property purchases. The risk, however, is that a portion of these funds will return to the mattress, in safety deposit boxes, or in other forms. Deposits in CERA bank accounts and Alycs amount to US$20.6 billion, while the total value of declared assets reached US$23.3 billion, including real estate and foreign assets. The possibility of channeling some of these dollars into real estate operations would both boost activity and prices, the real estate sector believes. The sector also hopes to capture part of the undeclared dollars, within the framework of the recently approved Tax Innocence Law. Specialists also mention another factor that could influence the sector's reactivation going forward if the government's labor reform advances: the purchase and rental of residential properties could be exempt from the Income Tax.
