By Georgia Grimond, Senior Contributing Report
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Economic Research Foundation Institute (Fipe) and real estate portal Zap released their monthly real estate index, FipeZap, on Thursday November 5th. After registering the largest drop since the index began last month, the change house prices in twenty cities in the country was only negative 0.01 percent between September and October.
Based on the price per square meter of apartments advertised, the survey showed that the average, country-wide price was R$7,612, only slightly higher than the average for September (R$7,604).
From January to October an increase of 1.37 percent was recorded in the average price of housing in the year so far. However, this represents a fall in real value for the period as rising inflation, expected at 8.48 percent by the IBGE, the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics, means there as been an actual decrease of 6.55 percent.
All the twenty cities surveyed registered a decline in real value, apart from Florianópolis in Santa Catarina. Contagem, in Minas Gerais, and Goiânia are home to the cheapest property of all the cities included in the index. Average real-estate prices in those areas were R$3,556 and R$4,176 respectively.
Property in Rio de Janeiro, by contrast, costs on average R$10,491 per square meter and is the priciest in the country. São Paulo is the second most expensive city to buy real estate in, with average prices registering at R$8,617 after a small increase of 0.04 percent in the cost of housing in the past month.
To celebrate Black Friday, traditionally an American shopping day the Friday after Thanksgiving where stores offer large discounts, VivaReal, in conjunction a number of other realtors and construction firms, will be offering knock-down prices on property throughout the month of November.
“Because of the success of the first edition of VivaReal Black Friday, more companies have decided to join the action this year,” says Lucas Vargas, the executive vice-president of VivaReal.
The real-estate site is offering a discount of 51 percent on a new-build commercial property, Seletto Business D.O.C, in Barra da Tijuca. Originally priced at R$358,700, it is now on sale for R$175,200. Discounts on other properties in Rio de Janeiro range from around five to thirty percent. A ninety-two square-meter, two-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment in Botafogo has been reduced by around twenty percent, from R$1,801,900 to R$1,436,835.
Construction companies are also offering cash buyers discounts of up to eight percent and returns of hundred percent of the amount already paid to the company for a property if the bank financing is not approved.
MRV Engenharia will be holding “Black Week” events in forty two cities throughout the country. In Rio, the company will be at the Extra Supermarket in Santa Cruz from November 13th – 15th. Close to thirty other companies are also participating in the Black Friday month, among them Tecnisa, Esser, Even, Camargo Corrêa, Cury and Rossi. Discounts will be on offer until November 30th.