Mar de las Pampas forest cabana

Mar de las Pampas is the most attractive village on the Buenos Aires coast: no paved roads, no street lighting on most lanes, strict building rules that keep everything low and wooden, and a forest of pine, acacia and eucalyptus planted into the dunes that runs right down to a wide grey-gold Atlantic beach. It sits between Villa Gesell and Mar Azul, four hours from Buenos Aires, and Argentinians who know it tend to go back every summer for life.

The property is a hundred and ten square metre cabana in the classic local style — stone base, timber cladding, steep shingled roof, big windows and a wood-burning stove. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open living-dining-kitchen, a mezzanine and a wraparound deck with an outdoor grill, on an eight-hundred-square-metre wooded plot with total privacy. Underfloor insulation, gas central heating, a carport and a garden shed. Four blocks — about four hundred metres of sand lane — to the beach access.

This is a summer-and-shoulder-season coast rather than a tropical one: January and February are hot and lively, autumn is golden and empty, winter is cold and grey but the village stays open, and spring is windy. The beach is enormous, hard-packed and good for walking and riding; the water is cool Atlantic, swimmable in high summer.

The village centre has restaurants, tea houses, chocolaterias, a small supermarket, a bakery and craft shops, all in wood, all within walking distance. Villa Gesell, ten minutes north, provides hospitals, banks, larger supermarkets, a casino and an airport with summer flights; Mar del Plata is an hour south with year-round connections.

Argentina prices coastal property in US dollars and transacts in cash dollars, which is why the numbers here look low against the quality of the build. Foreigners can buy freely; the process runs through an escribano who checks title and liens and issues the escritura, with roughly three to four per cent in taxes and fees plus a stamp duty. Rental returns in January and February are strong and dollarised. For a wooden house in a pine forest four hundred metres from the Atlantic, this is one of the best-value buys in South America.