13/10/07 Canadian Investors eye Brazil's Property Gold Mine
Canadian Financial Post reporter Karen Mazurkewich spent 10 days in Brazil, where she found a property market ripe for investment. Uniquely, she describes the boom from the inside "Until recently, buying an apartment in Brazil would have been impossible for most middle-income families. But with mortgage rates dropping to as low as 8.16% today from 42% in 2003, home ownership has become a reality. Welcome to the rise of Brazil's middle-class. According to Brazilian National Statistics Institute average incomes rose by 7.2% in 2002 and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has stated that seven million Brazilians joined the ranks middle class in recent years. While at least 53.9-million people still live below minimum wage, which is about US$200-month, there is a growing n umber of "lower-middle class" couples, who have combined incomes in the 900-1,200 reals range and can now afford to purchase homes.A pent-up demand for housing has been unleashed. Real estate is the new gold rush in Brazil."
(Source Canadian Financial Post)
10/09/07 Knight Frank: "Brazil has buy to let oportunities"
Looking further afield for buy-to-let opportunities could yield positive results for people who wait to see evidence of further capital growth, according to a spokesperson for Knight Frank.......
Buying offplan property in "rising markets" such as Brazil could be a lucrative option.
The spokesperson said if investors "buy now, rather than waiting ten months for capital growth", they could save between ten and 20 per cent.
More investors are looking to buy property in Brazil, encouraged by the areas exclusivity and the fact that it is still relatively unknown to the wider investment market.
(Source Knight Frank)
05/07/07 Foreigners invest $4.8 billion since September 2005
Brazil’s newfound economic stability and changes in lending laws are for the first time making it possible for the country’s working poor to buy their own homes. And using money that has been pouring in from foreigners who sense a lucrative investment — $4.8 billion since September 2005 — the country’s construction and real estate companies are building as fast as they can.
“There is a stronger demand for houses. There is a housing deficit, and now there are people with money to buy them,” said João Crestana, the vice president of urban development at Secovi, a leading confederation of constructors and developers in São Paulo state, Brazil’s most populous. “Companies can see there is a market.”
(Source www.nytimes.com)
30/06/07 Knight Frank tip Brazil in 2007!
Brazil, touted by Knight Frank's 07 Annual Wealth Report as one that the moneyed will be watching!
Hotel operator InterContinental Hotels Group PLC said Friday it signed deals with several developers to build four new hotels in Brazil by the end of next year.
The hotels will be located in Manaus, Natal, Foz do Iguacu and Aparecida do Norte.
The 12-floor Holiday Inn Manaus will contain 240 rooms, a business center, meeting rooms, gymnasium and restaurant. The property will be owned and developed by Ypua Empreendimentos Imobiliarios and managed by InterContinental's Hotel Management Group.
The four-story Holiday Inn Express Foz do Iguacu will be owned by LN Empreendimentos Imobiliarios under a license agreement with an InterContinental company. The hotel will have 126 rooms.
The 13-floor Holiday Inn Express Aparecida do Norte-Santuario Nacional will have 126 rooms, two meeting rooms, a business center and fitness center. The property will be developed and owned by Hamam Hoteis e Incorporacoes, under a license agreement with an InterContinental business.
The 13-floor Holiday Inn Express Natal will have 160 rooms, a business center and fitness center. It will be owned by Praiamar Empreendimentos Turisticos Ltda under a license agreement with an InterContinental company.
(Source www.forbes.com)
03-06/2007 The Spice is Right - Central and South America
Sarah Woods from the property investors bible, "Escape Magazine" takes a look at Latin America's burgeoning real estate sector and discovers a sizzling marketplace for investors and holiday homers that is hot, hot, hot. Click for PDF.
05/06/2007 Brazil Real Estate and Tourism Conference June 13-15 2007
Developers, property investors, landowners, construction companies, hoteliers, real estate firms, lawyers, architects, and consultants will descend on Salvador, Bahia in Brazil next week for the largest and most important tourism and real estate business networking event in Brazil.
“Nordeste Invest 2007” takes place June 13-15 2007 (www.nordesteinvest.com). This is the event where the top listed and unlisted Brazilian companies meet up with investors and potential investors from all around the world to form partnerships to develop commercial and residential property and holiday resorts on the vast tracts of Brazilian land available for development.
The focus is on the nine states that make up the Nordeste (Northeast) region of Brazil – an area of 1,558,200 kms equivalent to France, Italy, Germany and the UK combined. Each state - Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe - has a section of the Nordeste’s glorious 3,300 km of coastline.
The Government-backed Association for inward investment in the region, ADIT Nordeste (www.aditnordeste.org.br) works to attract foreign capital for new ventures, guaranteeing credibility and security for international investors and market orientation for executives. ADIT Nordest is currently developing a seal of legal security for all buyers of real estate – both large and small. ADIT also promotes the Brazilian Northeast abroad. Any information needed about Real Estate and Tourism ventures can be provided by the Association.
President Felipe Cavalcante says: “The United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are strategic markets for ADIT NORDESTE due to their tradition in the second residence segment. The potential of this market is enormous and the Brazilian enterprises should lead their efforts toward reaching it,”
(source:http://www.sourcewire.com)
05/06/2005 UK property investors 'are starting to wake up to Brazilian opportunities'
Brazil can offer previously unacknowledged low-cost opportunities for property buyers, experts have claimed.
For both investors and first time homebuyers, Brazil could offer a fruitful paradise despite an influx of five million tourists in recent years.
Natal, the safest city in Brazil according to a recent survey by the Institute for Applied Economics Research, can offer a beach house for less than £60,000.
UK investor Christine Lea told the Times that despite a low-costing property and a stabilised economy, "the Brits have not caught on very quickly".
Although "a lot of legwork" is required to find good quality property, "if you wanted to do up a property, there is lots of potential to find something cheap", she added.
In April, one property company spokesman noted that some UK investors are "winning twice" with the cheap property prices and stabilising economy offered by Brazil, noting the very low cost of living and the availability of areas "untouched" by foreign influence.
(source: http://www.ready2invest.co.uk)
02/06/2007 Diary of a private investor
Buying into big-picture case for Brazil. By James Bartholomew
I have bought into Brazil which is something I have never done before. I have never visited Brazil either. This is an investment outside my comfort zone. Despite this, I have invested what I think of as a "full stake", namely one twentieth of my entire financial assets including my pension fund.
Why have I done this? For one good reason and one rotten motive. The good reason is that a friend with an economics background has persuaded me that the big-picture case for Brazil is excellent. This is his argument: Brazil's exports are booming, largely because of the remarkable rise in the prices of its commodities such as iron ore and agricultural products. Now this sort of thing, in the past, has led to an upsurge in the Brazilian economy and high inflation. But this time, the government is trying to be economically correct. It has tried to keep the lid on everything.Inflation is still below 4 per cent . To achieve this, the government has resorted to very high interest rates of about 12 per cent . As well as trying to keep the lid on inflation and growth, the government has also been trying to hold down its currency, the Brazilian real.
"The bet is," as my friend puts it, "that the government cannot do this indefinitely and will capitulate, allowing the currency to appreciate and interest rates to fall." The latter, of course, would be good for shares and property prices. So, in sum, he suggests that the currency will rise and shares and property prices will rise, too. He argues that all this is similar to what happened in Taiwan in the 1980s.
He knows that I took part in that boom and would love to have a repeat performance. But there is one difference: in Taiwan, I bought when shares prices were pretty cheap in relation to company earnings. In Brazil, the shares are not such good value.
Which brings us to the issue of how does one invest in Brazil? There are some unit trusts that invest in that part of the world. Brazil is also the "B" in the popular concept of the "BRICs" economies. The word is made from the first letters of the four countries that are meant to be the coming major economies of the world. The other three are Russia, India and China.
But I normally prefer to own individual shares rather than funds. This keeps me away from management charges and I can target my investment idea more precisely. I don't really want to have a stake, for instance, in mining companies producing particular metals about which I have no particular view. So I have followed my friend into two companies: a bank and a construction company.
I have not bought shares, exactly, in these companies. I have bought GDRs or ADRs which mean Global Depositary Receipts or American Depositary Receipts. These are bundles of shares in each of the companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
I bought Unibanco GDRs at US$111.76 and US$113.87 and Gafisa ADRs at US$33.76 and US$34.58. Unibanco is not too expensive. The share price is about 11 times the forecast earnings per share for the current year. And although it operates in a far away country of which I know little, it is no minnow. It has a market capitalisation - the total value of all the shares - of £8bn. Apparently it has branches everywhere in Brazil.
Gafisa is no titch either. It has a market capitalisation of £1bn and is a major house-builder. But it is on a fancy rating. On the basis of a forecast by HSBC, the share price is 29 times likely earnings per share this year. This is expected to come down to 19 next year.
I should add that the Brazilian stock market is already five times the level it was in early 2003 and that if I decide this expedition to South America is going wrong, I will turn back pretty quick.
What is my "rotten motive" for buying in Brazil? That I am short of investment ideas for my Individual Savings Accounts (Isas) and Personal Equity Plans (Peps). There are plenty of shares on the Alternative Investment Market I would be happy to buy. But Peps and Isas are not allowed to go to that supposedly dangerous place. Brazil is considered fine.
(source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk)
01/06/2007 British investors are slowly discovering a low-cost coastal paradise
Property buyers are discovering that there are new opportunities in parts of Brazil that never make it on to the television news or the catwalk.
Take Natal in northeast Brazil, for example. Sunshine is guaranteed all year round, the cost of living is low and property prices are rising. It is the biggest city in Rio Grande do Norte, the part of Brazil that sticks out into the Atlantic and the closest point in South America to Europe. Those who have not heard of it yet soon will. Thanks to a huge marketing campaign by the Brazilian tourist board, the number of foreigners visiting Rio Grande do Norte grew by 130 per cent to 1.7 million in 2004. Thomson now flies direct to Natal from the UK and a new airport is due to be completed in 2009.
(source:http://property.timesonline.co.uk)
25/05/2007 Brazil Property attracts real estate big boys
The last 3 years has seen Brazilian real estate causing a flurry of activity amongst individual and small overseas property investors. Now the big guns in real estate investment have arrived to take advantage of a growing Brazilian economy. Morgan Stanley Real Estate has seen the light and has reported their intentions of expanding into Brazil. The region has managed to keep inflation low and maintain its economic success story on track and seems to be the darling of overseas property investors.
Morgan Stanley's real estate comprises three integrated businesses: banking, investing and lending. Morgan Stanley's global network of economists, strategists, research, and capital market and product specialists have specific knowledge to deliver the most informed strategic and investment advice possible.
Property investors can now take stock of the fact that such a well informed investor can choose Brazil as a place to invest. Morgan Stanley Real Estate is growing its operations in Brazil, having last month agreed to acquire a 14.29% stake in Brazilian residential developer and broker Abyara Planejamento Imobiliario S.A.
Morgan Stanley believes there is pent up demand for residential properties and new builds in Brazil, particularly in Sao Paulo.
British Property Investors have already been dipping their toes in the property investment market mainly around Natal and North Eastern Brazil. A recent survey conducted by the Institute for Applied Economics Research concluded that Natal is the safest city of all capital cities of Brazilian states.
Currencies Direct a British foreign exchange company, recently listed Brazil as the ninth most popular investment spot for British overseas property purchases. Mark O’Sullivan, head of trading at Currencies Direct, notes that Brazil’s “tropical climate, dramatic scenery, upbeat culture and potential annual occupancy rates of about 30 weeks, present plenty of reasons to buy property in Brazil.”
(source:http://www.homesgofast.com)
Property in Natal Brazil Leads the Way
The quiet roar from the Brazil property market got a little louder this week, following news of a rise in the country’s employment rates, thanks largely to unprecedented activity in its construction and housing sectors. Property in Natal, the country’s ‘Caribbean Coast’ and the capital city of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, is witnessing huge growth in its infrastructure, set to receive 1.8 billion US dollars of investment into new hotels, resorts and golf courses and a brand new airport, São Gonçalo del Amarante, which will be operational from June 2009, and which will be the eighth biggest in the world. A recent survey by the Institute for Applied Economics Research showed that Natal is the safest of all Brazil’s regional capitals when it comes to personal risk, part of the area’s huge appeal as a retirement destination or for a second home investment. With an economy which appears to have entered a new phase of stability following years of underperformance, the country’s central bank recently cut its inflation rate prediction to 3.7 per cent. Coupled with a strengthening currency, a popular re-elected President in the shape of Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, not to mention some of the best beaches in the world, the massive success story of Brazil as an emerging real estate market is one to be taken very seriously indeed. Brazilian employment rates last month registered the strongest growth in 15 years, with a total of 301,991 jobs were created in April, up 31.4 percent from 229,803 for the same period last year, the largest employment growth the General Register of the Employed and Unemployed (CAGED) has verified since it was created in 1992, the Ministry of Labor said in a press statement.
Brazil’s popularity is undisputed, with floods of tourists enjoying the country’s unique combination of great climate and environment and extremely low cost of living, with many areas retaining that golden ‘untouched’ feeling. Increasingly seen as a viable alternative to the European property markets, which many industry analysts see as having peaked, the resulting high rates of occupancy mean that the Brazil property market has something to offer any property investor. It’s no surprise then to read that it’s the financial analysts who can’t get enough of Brazil and its continuing success: economists at the mighty Goldman Sachs even invented an acronym in 2001, BRICs (standing for Brazil, Russia, India and China) in order to name and track the phenomenal growth seen and predicted to continue of this bullish group of four. They have predicted that, by 2050, the BRICs economies will grow so large that they will each become members of the largest economies in the world. It goes without saying that, if the four pursue good economic policies, incredible returns are to be had. With Lehman Brothers strongly encouraging Brazilian property assets to be held as part of a larger property portfolio, Morgan Stanley Real Estate is also getting in on the action, recently entering into talks to agree to purchase a 14.29% stake in Abyara Planejamento Imobiliario, a top residential real estate broker and co-developer in Brazil, Morgan Stanley Real Estate’s most substantial investment in Brazil to date.
In the past, social problems such as poverty, human trafficking and governmental corruption only put buyers off. However, the world can see the changes happening in Brazil as it actively courts international attention. Findings by the UK’s Property Investor and Homebuyer Show show that capital income into the Brazil property market has grown by around 20 per cent over the past few months, with buyers increasingly favouring land purchases over off-plan or beach-front properties in Brazil. Additionally, foreign exchange specialists Currencies Direct’s Global Emerging Markets Index showed Brazil climbing to 9th place in the top ten places to invest, noting the country’s large and well-developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service industries, a large labour pool, and relative Latin American wealth. Nonetheless, Brazil is still a developing country and therefore there are positives and negatives to be aware of in the country’s property game, especially its continuing beaurocracy.
The city of Natal, in north-east Brazil, is witnessing "huge growth" in its infrastructure, which is good news for overseas property investors, an expert has said. Writing for website Home Worldwide, Joss Hutton said that the creation of a new airport and massive shopping malls, as well as numerous beaches and untouched coastline, is tempting British property buyers. He went on to say that many areas in Natal are hoping to improve local infrastructure "in the very near future". "Nearly two thousand apartments are being constructed in the local area with surrounding yacht marinas, golf courses and massive retail parks under construction in order to tempt investors to the area," he remarked. Natal is the capital city of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, a major tourist destination in Brazil. A recent survey by the Institute for Applied Economics Research showed that Natal is the safest of all Brazil's regional capitals when it comes to personal risk.
(source:http://www.propertyshowrooms.com)
11/05/2007 $1.8 billion investment over 5 years for the Natal area of Brazil
An investment of up to $1.8 billion is planned over the next five years for the Natal area of Brazil to ensure that it becomes one of the most popular tropical destinations for the international community. Ian Clarke Director of Our Home Abroad says, “Brazil is starting to dominate the overseas property market as investors realise that this industrial powerhouse is perhaps one of the best kept investment secrets around. Annually welcoming over 5 million tourists, Brazil already represents 42% of the gross domestic product of Latin America and this figure is expected to grow significantly as we move into a new era. Property prices are still low, but growing quickly as the country continues to benefit from its healthy economy. With a sound domestic market and a proven resale and rental market, western investors are aplenty.”
(source:http://www.easier.com)
04/05/2007 Brazil Overseas Property Boom
With many European markets having already peaked in terms of successful investment opportunities, more and more British people are snapping up properties in Brazil. Calculations by the UK's Property Investor and Homebuyer Show North illustrate an increase of around 20 per cent in capital growth of Brazilian property. The South American country has an excellent climate, living costs about one fifth of that in the UK and whilst currently benefiting from a generally stable economy foreign investors are attracted away from more saturated markets in Europe and the United States. The area of Natal in the north east of the country, the closest part of Latin America to Europe is experiencing huge growth, with a new airport and huge shopping malls due for completion in 2009. There are literally hundreds of beautiful beaches and miles of unspoilt coastline in Natal and many of these areas have plans in place for improved infrastructure in the very near future. Nearly two thousand apartments are being constructed in the local area with surrounding yacht marinas, golf courses and massive retail parks under construction in order to tempt investors to the area. Buyers aiming for the locations with potential for high capital gain will be taking high risks. Any investment in growth areas, needs to be well researched and careful consideration given for any hidden costs. Nevertheless Brazil is fast becoming an area of international foreign interest and with the right ingredients, financial gains look extremely promising.
With an economy which appears to have entered a new phase of stability following years of underperformance, the country’s central bank recently cut its inflation rate prediction to 3.7 per cent. Coupled with a strengthening currency, a popular re-elected President in the shape of Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, not to mention some of the best beaches in the world, the massive success story of Brazil as an 
Brazil’s popularity is undisputed, with floods of tourists enjoying the country’s unique combination of great climate and environment and extremely low cost of living, with many areas retaining that golden ‘untouched’ feeling. Increasingly seen as a viable alternative to the European property markets, which many industry analysts see as having peaked, the resulting high rates of occupancy mean that the Brazil property market has something to offer any property investor. It’s no surprise then to read that it’s the financial analysts who can’t get enough of Brazil and its continuing success: economists at the mighty Goldman Sachs even invented an acronym in 2001, BRICs (standing for Brazil, Russia, India and China) in order to name and track the phenomenal growth seen and predicted to continue of this bullish group of four. They have predicted that, by 2050, the BRICs economies will grow so large that they will each become members of the largest economies in the world. It goes without saying that, if the four pursue good economic policies, incredible returns are to be had. With Lehman Brothers strongly encouraging Brazilian property assets to be held as part of a larger property portfolio, Morgan Stanley Real Estate is also getting in on the action, recently entering into talks to agree to purchase a 14.29% stake in Abyara Planejamento Imobiliario, a top residential real estate broker and co-developer in Brazil, Morgan Stanley Real Estate’s most substantial investment in Brazil to date.
In the past, social problems such as poverty, human trafficking and governmental corruption only put buyers off. However, the world can see the changes happening in Brazil as it actively courts international attention. Findings by the UK’s