By Nelson Belen, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to the latest FipeZAP Index, residential real estate sale prices in Brazil remained relatively stable in March, registering a marginal decline of 0.04 percent. However in the last year, only two cities, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba, showed higher growth than inflation.
Although encouraging for real estate holders across the country, the slight decline in March remains well below the rate of inflation measured by the IPCA/IBGE (National Consumer Price Index/Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) of 0.23 percent for the month.
Charlie Jonas from luxury real estate agency, Rio Exclusive, explained, “After a significant fall since the 2016 Olympics, prices seem to have somewhat stabilized. We are clearly in a buyers market.”
“Sales for us have been doing good since the beginning of the year and we are confident it will remain like this till the crisis goes by. What I tell the owners I work with is that if they want to sell they property in a short array of time they must indicate a price that is below market value. If not they must be patient,” said Jonas.
In March, the average price per square meter among the twenty cities surveyed was R$7,698. Rio de Janeiro led the way as having the most expensive residential real estate sale prices with an average of R$10,221 per square meter.
Unsurprisingly, Rio’s upscale neighborhood of Leblon had the honor of having the country’s most expensive residential real estate prices, clocking in at R$21,541 per square meter. Not too far behind was trendy Ipanema, at R$20,175 and Lagoa at R$17,903.
Trailing Rio de Janeiro was Brazil’s financial capital, São Paulo with an average price per square meter of R$8,656, followed by Distrito Federal at R$8,436 per square meter.
The cities with the lowest average residential real estate value per square meter were Vila Velha at R$4,613, Goiânia at R$4,103 and Contagem at R$3,527.
Eleven of the twenty cities included in the Index showed a decline in sale prices from February to March. Only two, Belo Horizonte (0.49 percent) and Vila Velha (0.27 percent), registered price variations that exceeded inflation for the month.
Looking at the last twelve months, five of the twenty cities that were surveyed showed nominal declines in residential sales prices: Rio de Janeiro, Federal District, Fortaleza, Niterói and Goiânia.
Taking into account the rate of inflation of 4.55 percent for the last twelve months, only two cities, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba, showed higher variations against inflation.
The FipeZap Index monitors real estate sale prices across twenty Brazilian cities, and is a monthly gauge of real estate prices prepared jointly by the university research center, Fipe (Economic Research Institute Foundation) and the Brazilian online real estate platform, Zap Properties.