Why the hell is it good news to have prices for property depressed, is it that you either can,t afford to buy anywhere in a competitive market, or are you just one of those people who hate to see anyone doing something that you either can,t afford to do or are too frightened to do, I am sick of hearing negatives from you and Dotty about the northeast of Brazil, if it is so bad why are you constantly on this forum, you should be able to find other threads to spread your doom and gloom, surely there must be a thread for China, or Russia, where nobody want,s to buy, and then at least someone will agree with you.

You are right my friend, can't afford it, or at least my second one in Brazil! Let me answer in great detail as to whymyself and Dottly keep highlinghting the "reality" rather than the "spin" from those who prefer to claim facts or perceptions which are not real.

Only 2 days ago I received a call from a UK property agent trying to sell me a property in a development near Maracajau and he told me to "buy quick as prices are rising fast and will increase 30% at the end of the month". Of course, this is complete nonsese as per many of the statements Agents have tried to make over the last few years.

Clearly, there are many here that would prefer that myself or Dotty were not here then it would be more difficult for some to peddle "hype" to try and prolong a false boom in sales and prices. The offplan or overseas investment premise only works if people believe the concept of "buy now whilst stock last". Once the investor realises that he is better to wait..the concept collapses.

As for dropping or lower prices, that entirely in the interest of buyer, but of course not sellers. Is this reflected in your post. Artificially inflated prices are no good to anyone in the end, otherwise you end up with a "sub prime" type crisis based on cheap loans or speculation where real economic fundamentals have not been applied. Then markets can collapse hurting all those except the ones that earned commissions and the ones who got in and out early.

Maybe if we are not careful, a "sub prime" property crisis might spread round the world sooner than we hoped!

Does this help explain the basic economic theories to you?

Graymax,

The reality is not of negativity,but more of common sense!Until flight prices come down and there is easier access to Natal and not only Natal, there will not be hoards of holiday makers buying in Natal or any other destination at present by the bucket load.There are overseas investors ,of course there are,but there could be 1,000 s more too!Are you an agent by any chance??

Dotty, it's simple. It is not easy trying to sell of plan homes in Brazil when the flights are infrequent and the most expensive in the world, when existing property values elsewhere are dropping, when cheap easy finance has disappeared and the last thing on most people's mind now is a home in an exotic country where they can't get to cheaply!

I wonder what caused this this financial credit crunch and sub prime property collapse in the first place?

Graymax, you have assumed a lot about me and my comments, most all wrong! Firstly, I have bought in Brazil, upfront and not on a loan or staged payments, so that rules out your jealousy theory. Secondly, I didn't buy for profit or gain....nor did I buy to let. Thirdly, I bought because I too like Brazil although I am realistic enough to realise that it is nowhere near the utopia some paint it to be. Why are low prices good, because it means that more people can take advantage rather than the artificially inflated prices that the "off plan" market attempts to create. This does nobody any good in my view as people get sucked into it and some can get into difficulty with this speculation. If you are a UK resident you'llknow what is happening to "buy to let" which is really "off plan overseas" on home territory. You'll also know about the Costas. But, go to 100 Brazilian property websites and you will be told, "cheap easy access/flights", stable currency, booming economy, new infrastructure, rising prices, investment gains etc etc. How many say flights are 30% more expensive than elsewhere..only one real airline operating, a 20% increase against Sterling, difficulty in getting a bank account and re-patriating profits/rents? So before you get irked because some of us face reality, then by getting "learned" it might help some people to make a valued judgement and not get into a mess they didn't bargain for. It is known as balanced opinions. Mine and Dotty's are at one end and yours at the other..that's what forums are for, notfor hounding some out because others don't want to hear the bad news!

Investing in a country is having the foresight to see the path it has been on and where it is going not necessarily where it is now. Once again, although there are 1000 agents out there stating that prices will increase by 30% by the end of the month, there are also many out there who are realistic.

However, you must be the first person I've heard of who is delighted at the prospect of potentially losing money. Congratulations to you for going against the flow, but you'd do better to give it to charity.

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Yes, I work for a Real Estate company doing market research and analysis but I'm not involved in sales.

Have a nice day

You are only losing money if you sell something and if you don't sell it you haven't lost money! You don't go to a restaurant for steak and chips, pay £15 then when you see it allegedly on offer at £12 next week say "I lost money on that steak and chips"!

In other words you pay to enjoy something, you don't go back every week and check the menu to see if last weeks steak has gone up or down do you!

This is the whole point of my criticism of the hype....all these off plan sellers are claiming investment gains or profits and the only way to convince their "investors" that their claims are correct is to keep increasing the prices. This is fine when there is demand, but whenthere isn't it creates a false and precarious market.....anyone own an inner city "buy to let" apartment in the UK? You'll know exactly what I mean!

The reality is that 2nd home property or whatever you choose to call it, which is pre-paid in instalments prior to completion is sold entirely on "capital gain" or "by the time you move in it will have increased in price". Nobody sells forward on the basis that there will be losses..otherwise, why buy forward? What this industry has done is buck economics and thousands have jumped on the bandwagon thinking there is easy money to be made. Well Banks worldwide found out the hard way, so did many owners either in Michigan, Malaga or Marrakesh that what goes up might come down! And if it comes down, you'd have been better off waiting and buying one of those!

So you think that people are qualified as the "richest person in the world" because they have the most 20 pound notes under their matresses? Or because the joint value of what they own is more than anyone else?

It's called assets. If you have an asset and the value of that asset drops, you have lost money. You just claimed that you were delighted that the value of your asset in Brazil had dropped. Hence, you go against the flow of 99% of the rest of the world who would prefer to make money rather than lose it. It seems to happen a lot with you though, like the bridge over the river Potengi.

Everyone else in Natal says it was worth building, you say it wasn't.

I applaud you for your uniqueness. Oh and you would do well to stop quoting Spain as an example of a bad investment considering the fact that millions made millions there. Investing in a property market is also about timing, the same way investing in stocks is about timing. You don't buy right at the top or when prices are going down, you buy when you believe they will go up.

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Yes, I work for a Real Estate company doing market research and analysis but I'm not involved in sales.

Have a nice day

Hi Golfingworld,

You are absolutely right! To make money today in Brasil is not nearly quite the same as in the past because the rises in value are far smaller and there are millions more choices,also the uncertainty overseas which is real and not some fabricated nonsense is effecting sales ,along with the flight prob,so there willl be crash in prices at some point and to close ones eyes and think that Brasil is untouchable are naive! Somebody wrote in an earlier thread about investing to sell on to Brasilians and not just assume because there are foreign buyers to target that area.Well he is right because there are millions more brasilian buyers than foreign ones and they are far more easier to sell to.

Happy selling (non-agent)

Well John,

Buying is all about timing,but you also need buyers to buy and sell to am I right?Well if you cannot get here easily in the 1st place how will do you think that will affect the property prices and with the overseas property crunch in place right now and looks unfortunately likely to carry on for a while at least from 2 of the richest countries in the world it would be foolish to say everything is going to go through the roof .Now people did make millions in Spain(the investors who invested yrs ago)it is also 2 hrs away and 40,00 pounds to get to now Spain are going through a property slump and now is the time to buy in Spain,just as within the next 2 yrs will be the time to buy in the UK,why would you buy in Brasil when the prices are at there most overinflated??

Dotty,

Spain wasn't cheap to get to 20 or even 10 years ago it certainly wasn't 40 of today's pounds. Also the travel times once you got here were not good at all, i.e. 2 1/2 hours from the airport to Marbella on a single lane highway, I can do the same drive now in 30 minutes, and I have a friend who does it in 20 mins but at considerably higher speeds than me.

If prices of property in Brazil is so over-inflated why are so many people both local and foreigners buying?

I was in Switzerland until yesterday morning talking to developers, investors and bankers and they are going mad about the place.

I also heard (and saw the documentation to back it up) that there are also some buyers going through buying up large amounts of units in developments in one go.

We have a couple of US investors buying up big as well. So whilst your average punter may not be buying, a lot of other people are.

But back to over-inflated, do you mean the median price is over-inflated or just some developments & areas are over-inflated?

If the later then I agree with you, and the market should rectify that quickly enough, it is already as some types of developments in some areas are not selling at all and probably won't for years.

If the former, then have a look at the prices in places like Buzios near Rio, they are still selling there.

BTW, you would love to see some of the gumpf that gets offered to us, you wonder if some of these people have any commercial sense at all. We even had one developer who has an interesting project but insists that all payments are sent into Sweden so there is no chance your money is ever registered in Brazil. What is worse this guy openly admitted not having consulted a Brazilian lawyer once about the contracts, so I doubt anything is even legal with this development yet he is building it!

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