Brazilian consumers’ online real estate purchases surge

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A survey by startup Apê11 shows that 63% of purchase offers for residential real estate received in May were fully digital.

More than a year of pandemic and social isolation have broken many of Brazilians’ taboos regarding e-commerce.

If before there was a certain degree of apprehension about buying an item of clothing and becoming frustrated – because the garment would not fit well, for example, nowadays even real estate is sold digitally, when the buyer has never physically visited the apartment before closing the deal.

The change in consumer behavior is very recent, but significant enough to draw the attention of online real estate companies.

A survey conducted by Apê11, a startup specialized in buying and selling real estate online, shows that 63% of offers received in May were fully digital, with no human interaction. Of these, 12% closed deals – and half without the buyer ever having set foot on the property at least once.

“The result was a surprise: properties sold through e-commerce as ground coffee or jeans,” compares Apê11’s partner-director Leonardo Azevedo. This buying behavior gains significance because a house is the most important purchase for most people.

The company began operating in 2019 and has always aimed to digitalize transactions as much as possible. “But we were somewhat skeptical about the operation becoming fully digital,” he concedes.

Fully digital offers began to emerge in February this year and, at the time, accounted for 21% of the total. From then on they have only increased.

The proposal is a binding offer, stating the amount, the payment method, and the origin of funds. The normal path in digital negotiations is for the buyer to initiate a dialogue with the broker after the first virtual contact through photos and videos, and then physically visit the property before closing the deal.

In recent months, QuintoAndar, a real estate rental and sales startup, has also witnessed the advance of e-commerce in real estate without an in-person visit. One in every 4 cities in which the startup operates in sales had a case of a closed deal with no visit. The majority occurred in São Paulo capital.

In addition to the push given by social isolation, Arthur Malcom, head of purchase and sale at QuintoAndar, says that data transparency on rental properties available on his platform has opened the way for fully digital purchase and sale deals.

“Clients who buy to invest do not want to visit the apartment as much as they want to understand the potential return on the deal,” he says.

Profiles

Although this type of purchase is more viable for investors focused on rental revenue and the appreciation of the asset itself, there are also other buyer profiles seeking this type of transaction.

Azevedo mentions buyers who are looking for a house and have had some close relationship with the property, such as a relative who has lived in the condominium. There are also buyers who walk past a building under construction, without a sales booth, and buy because of the location.

Digital real estate brokers do not disclose absolute transaction figures with no physical visits, but some indicators provide clues to the profile of interested parties. In the first semester, 74% of Apê11’s transactions were for housing and 26% were for investment.

For QuintoAndar, 92% of properties negotiated with no previous visit involved small apartments and studios.

Claudio Hermolin, Secovi-SP’s vice-president of real estate brokerage, says he has no data on this new type of sale. “It’s something recent, and there isn’t a large volume.”

But this form of transaction should continue in the post-pandemic, he says, as people believe more in the data transparency that came with technology and a virtual visit.

Source: Estado de S. Paulo

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