In 2005, the Salta developer Magdalena Day I was 22 years old. At that time, her life was alien to the real estate market since a handful of her subjects separated her from her Marketing degree. Faced with the alert of a risky pregnancy – which ended with the arrival of her first child – the young woman took a break from the university and dedicated time to her health and family. In her first steps as a married woman with a newborn baby, Day experienced a need that traversed and continues to impact young people today: have a home.
“It was up to me to start forming my family and my home,” he said in dialogue with THE NATION, adding: “A learning from marketing stuck with me: that one has to develop a product or service with a genuine need. In Salta and in the country, the genuine need for me was the possibility of having access to my own home”.
But in the northern province basic products came from a very high monetary stick. “In Salta, the first closed neighborhoods with farm-type land from 5000 m² were appearing and I analyzed what I could contribute as a project to give young people a solution. So I began to study some 100 hectares of land that belonged to my family in the western ring road, which is like today the area of Nordelta and Pilar, where young families moved. They were attached to shops and schools but had no infrastructure, so I proposed installing it and creating options for lots of 1,500 to 2,000 m² that were more accessible and that at that time were non-existent in the area”, tells about its beginnings.
The only accessible alternative that the province had “were the neighborhoods of the Provincial Housing Institute with 250-meter plots, but you had to be in a professional association to enroll, so the middle class had no viable options”, dice.
The experience and knowledge in the field was nil but the passion for his mission gave him the necessary strength to start his project. This is how it outsourced engineers to direct the works, agronomists and professionals from the sector and in less than a year he had already equipped La Merced Chica -his first urbanization with water, gas and basic services- and formed the MDay Group that he leads today.
Despite developing her project in a conservative Salta, Day as a mother and professional in a field mostly for men, appreciates the advice of her parents “who always promoted the view that the impossible did not exist and they did not set a ceiling for me because I am a woman or anything like that, ”he celebrates.
While balancing her working life with that of a new mother, ambition and her purpose to help young people motivated her to go further in her young years. On the neighboring lands to her family lands, through which she had passed through the door when installing the new services, there were between eight and 10 hectares of a family from Salta who lived in Uruguay. But buying them the traditional way was not an option. The value of that land was around US$800,000 at the time and she had only saved the money for her first car, a Citroen C3 whose value was barely 1% of the amount that I would have to pay.
“When I started I didn’t have a car, I had to go by bus to the Church and there I showed the proposals to the clients so my first tool had to be mobility,” he says. The owners of the land were connected with one of the most important construction companies in the area and she, with her little experience in her portfolio, had to show that she was going to be able to fulfill her promises.
“I approached the owner of the land and told him what I had developed with my family, that I had my own project and that I wanted to buy the land. I told him that if I used the savings from my car, I would lose everything and asked for time to gather permits and potential buyers. He told me to find another way to give him a guarantee so I left there disappointed; But I think offering him the money for my first car softened him up. So he called the owners to tell them the crazy proposal of a 23 year old girl and we met,” he says.
Finally, the agreement came with one condition. If he could get the permits and clients together in six months, the land was his to buy. “I saw a lot of young people interested in buying land without expenses and close to a consolidated urban center, so I knew that the demand existed. No sooner said than done, They gave me six months and by the third month I had already put everything together”, she says proud of her achievements, which she recognizes that “They were a sign that I give everything I have having faced the item without having almost any experience”. The best part? His car savings were never accepted as payment.
This is how he managed to materialize his first own venture of 50 new lots for young people and since then he has never stopped. He acknowledges that many of his urbanization projects are built mainly with Procrear credit lines, one of the most affordable options among young families in the country.
An important fact in this type of project is that the developer finances six years after possession. “The young man today you need quotas. I think there is a need for support from the public-private sector where the public sector supports viable private projects with credit. For example, instead of the four years of average financing for real estate developments, we need 20 years as was done historically with housing affordability policies. Today, the young man arrives to purchase the land but needs the subsidized amount of construction”, he concludes.
In this sense, it developed the Chancas project, in which they pay an advance, low installments until they move while they inject money to complete a year and a half of work and clients pay in six years in pesified installments updated by the CAC. On a 6,000 m² piece of land, he built 40 apartments and lofts up to 70 square meters with its own garden and amenities essential to keep utility costs low. This project has already been delivered and they are currently replicating the same model in other parts of the city.
However, with the growth of the developer came expanding its product portfolio. “A few years ago he started boom mining in Salta and we saw that the families that moved to the area began to demand services, shops, offices. For them we started to do mixed-use products in order to generate consolidation in a 15-minute city. The western beltway, our largest area of influence, connects with the roads that go up to the mines and due to the spill it ended up being the area demanded by the mining corporation, which greatly accelerates the enrichment of the area”, he points out about the area where the They are developing corporate and residential projects.
“The little blonde who sold illusions”, as she was called when she was young, showed that being a woman with firm convictions and dreams and that coming from another field does not mean any limitation if you have a defined purpose. Today, the group has 1,200 urbanized hectares -of which 800 are aimed at young people-, more than 25 projects have been delivered and more than 15,000 families have become owners. Half of his wallet is still aimed at his original mission, provide a housing solution for young peopleand the other found a way to adapt to the market and is intended for closed neighborhoods for the public that seeks security, commercial and corporate projects.
It is in this context that he analyzes his next steps and does not see a close investment in the giant from Buenos Aires, but instead leans towards the legal certainty of Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, where there are credits for projects, tax exemptions for 10 years and policies that encourage investment.
