The second and holiday homes market for UK buyers is beginning to boom in Brazil with the country’s central bank recorded a huge increases in money arriving for property related purposes.
According to the Central Bank of Brazil some £30.1 million of personal money from the UK arrived in Brazil in the last year compared with just £4 million in 2004.
The trend is confirmed by currency specialists such as Moneycorp, which launched a Brazilian Real service in September 2009, said that it has completed hundreds of transactions on behalf of customers and since the beginning of the year enquiries about Brazilian real estate have increased 40% on 2009.
It says its service cuts through Brazilian Bureaucracy, guarantees a fixed exchange rate, significantly speeds up the process, guarantees a delivery date and keeps costs low as it has a unique partnership with one of Brazil’s most reputable banks, the Banco Rendimento.
The bank fixes the Brazilian real rate of exchange throughout the transaction so that clients know exactly how many Reals will be delivered. It also reduces the time between transfer and receipt of funds, while guaranteeing that each trade will be registered with the Central Bank to facilitate the future repatriation of funds.
The partnership with Banco Rendimento means it is easy for Brits to open a local bank account and crucially rental income can be received in the local real currency, according to Vasilios Dimarakis, Moneycorp’s head of overseas operations.
‘The process for moving money into and out of Brazil can be extremely bureaucratic, costly and time intensive, with UK investors and property developers losing out on an average of £5 to £10,000,’ he explained.
‘Moneycorp’s service speeds up the transfers and secures a guaranteed delivery date for peace of mind, it is helping our clients get the best deal possible when looking to invest in Brazil. This is a practical step that people can take to maximize the value of their investment and not waste their hard-earned cash,’ he added.
Interest in buying property in Brazil is likely to increase with the 2014 football world cup due to be held in the country and the 2016 Olympic Games. In the northeast of the country alone, the most popular destination for UK buyers, foreign investments in the region in the next 10 years are predicted to reach R$ 20 billion.
It is estimated that tens of thousands of new properties will be snapped up by foreign buyers by 2014.
