Marcos Santoro, vice president of housing developer Racional – in an interview with Brazil’s Exame magazine – believes that the rising costs of construction in the country’s real estate industry will continue to place pressure on prices to remain high.
The Bank of Brazil (Banco do Brasil) has stated its intention to expand in being a mortgage provider for the country´s low income housing programme – the Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life). Announced by planning Minister Miriam Belchior, the bank´s priority is to focus on being the prominent ´financial operator for families earning up to three times the minimum wage.´
The Construction Industry Syndicate for São Paulo (SindusCon-SP) and the largest home lender in Brazil – the Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF) – have signed a protocol which will place obligations on both organisations to actively seek solutions to promote real estate sustainability and environmental respect.
Credit agency Standard’s & Poor (S&P) has positively revised its rating perspectives (risk classification) for the following banks with widescale operations in Brazil: the Brazilian Development Bank (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social); the Bank of Brazil (Banco do Brasil); the Northeastern Bank (Banco do Nordeste do Brasil); Santander; HSBC and Citibank.
The Habitation Syndicate of São Paulo (Secovi-SP) has released data demonstrating that the level rent being received for residential property has increased by 15.82 percent in the last 12 months – with a 2.2 percent rise between March and April of 2011. The organisation attributes the pattern to limited supply in the market place.
Research by Brazil’s Veja magazine has demonstrated that 45 percent of the country’s households are not connected to any form of waste disposal. Some 90 million people are using cesspits or ditches which are often leading to rivers and the sea.
The new company will be named Norcon Rossi and will hold an 80 percent stake in projects already launched with a goal of R$ 2.8 billion in sales values by 2013. Rossi will manage the financial and operational management and Norcon will take care of local land administration and labour.
During the Caixa Econômica Federal annual real estate fair in Rio de Janeiro, the president of the bank reported that the targets for 2011 are at R$ 82 billion – compared to R$ 77.8 billion in 2010. Speaking to journalists, Jorge Hereda – who commenced the role in March of this year stated: ‘our 2010 expectations were exceeded and this year we can expect the same situation.’
Despite the Brazilian real estate market looking set to experience a slow down, investment interest is nevertheless remaining strong. As an example, in March 2011 the Brazilian Capital Property Fund (‘Fundo dos Fundos de Investimentos Imobiliários da Brazilian Capital’), the first to be created of its kind, captured R$ 114 million (over R$ 14 million more than what was expected) collectively from 2,490 investors. According to Fabio Nogueira, director of Brazilian Finance Real Estate (BRFE) in an interview with the Exame magazine, such high demand has created an excellent opportunity to form a specific index for property funds – a process of which is already under analysis by the BM&FBovespa (the country’s main stock market).
The Brazilian Association of Construction Industry Materials (ABRAMAT) have stated that average sales levels have fallen by 1.41 percent when comparing April 2011 with the same period in 2010 and dropped by 4.14 percent since March 2010.
