Transferring Money US to Brazil to Buy Apartment

Viviexpat wrote:

Thank you guys, I appreciate your guys help.

How did you guys find someone who you could trust (attorney and a Brazilian tax accountant)? is there a webiste similar to upwork in Brazil or was it word of mouth?

I didn't even know that you had to hire a civil engineer for inspection in Brazil I thought people didn't even inspect the properties like they do in the US.

Yes, I got a CPF, Brazilian ID and Brazilian passport as well.

There is a website you can check, www.jusbrasil.com, through which you can contact attorneys; you'll still want to meet them and get a feel for them before you make any decisions.

Honestly though, while we interviewed a couple of attorneys we met through jusbrasil, we ended up going with one that was recommended by our accountant, and we met our accountant through the recommendation of a friend.

With respect to a house inspection, deferred maintenance is an unfortunate fact of life in Brazil, so I'd certainly recommend it for any property over five or ten years old.  A lot of the problems with our apartment were so obvious that we didn't need an expert to tell us about them, but we did want an opinion about any hidden issues that might have drawn his eye  and escaped ours.

Viviexpat wrote:

Thank you Abthree and Texanbrazil.

I am looking for homes on OLX.com .br and wanted to ask you if you or anyone have experience with this site to buy a property? I'm seeing lots of posts of homes that appear to be undervalued and sold by owner. I'm trying to avoid getting scammed what do you guys recommend when wanting to work directly with the owner but also to not fall victim of scammers? Do I need to hire a lawyer and a real estate agent if I want to buy a home directly from the owner? Is it best to stay all altogether and just buy a property that is being sold by a real estate company?

Thank you all sm

06/04/21

I used that site, but only to find out about properties and prices in buildings that we were already interested in.  OLX doesn't give street addresses, but we were able to recognize the buildings and neighborhoods from the streetview pictures.  At that point, I had been visiting Manaus for three years and had been living here for almost one; my Brazilian husband has lived here all his life.  We were very confident in our knowledge both of the city and in how things are done here.  We walked through every property we saw on OLX that seemed interesting to us; most didn't live up to the pictures.  We found an apartment on OLX in the building where we were already renting that was perfect for us, got input on the owner from the building staff, and decided to deal with her directly.   We still had our own lawyer review and pass on all the paperwork, and hired a civil engineer recommended by our accountant to do an inspection. 

If the apartment we bought had not been available, or if it had turned out to be unacceptable, our next step would have been to find an agent to help us find something we wanted to buy.  I would never try to buy property in Brazil (or probably anywhere else) remotely, without seeing it personally.  Not being an expert in Brazilian real estate law, I certainly would want an independent expert opinion on the transaction before making a commitment.

Viviexpat wrote:

Thank you Abthree.

After you guys found the desired home how log did the whole process take until you got the keys and everything?

06/04/21

Long story short, we walked through the apartment for the first time on March 19, had the engineer examine it on April 13, made an offer to the seller on April 26, reviewed all documents with our attorney as we received them, passed papers and took possession on May 16, completed registrations on May 21, started a massive renovation project on June 1, completed the renovation on August 7, and moved in on August 10.

Nothing in Brazil moves this quickly, particularly if there's construction involved; few projects in the US do either, for that matter.  We were able to do it because :

  -- We had very motivated seller, who was anxious to move the property.  She's a real estate investor and trained as a lawyer, so she knew exactly what was needed and gave us absolutely clean documentation.  We thought that her asking price was fair, given the amount of work that the apartment needed, and made a cash offer, so she had every reason to cooperate.  And she's honest:  everything she told us panned out.

-- We have very good banking relationships.  We met with our Banco do Brasil branch manager the week before the purchase to go through all the details with him, and the total purchase price, plus the amount we had budgeted for the renovation, was available to us 48 hours after the transfer was initiated in the US. 

-- There are people on the building staff who traditionally receive "commissions" when apartments sell.  Since we had been living in the building as renters, we had developed relationships with these people, and agreed to pay them what they expected -- if, in return, they helped us in finding the builder and materials to finish the renovation, on time and within budget.  That turned out to be a remarkably good investment.

-- We had an excellent builder -- recommended by the building staff -- who knew his work, was smart and resourceful, worked hard, and ran his team well.

-- We were on the job site several times a day (it was easy, we lived nine floors below), to answer questions, resolve issues, provide emergency supplies, see that the work was going forward, and ensure that minor hangups didn't become big delays.

-- We set up payment milestones for everyone, paid everyone immediately and in full as milestones were met, and took receipts.

-- We were incredibly, enormously, almost unimaginably lucky.

Nothing brilliant or exotic, but it would have been impossible to accomplish remotely.

Viviexpat wrote:

Thank you Abthree and Texanbrazil.

I am looking for homes on OLX.com .br and wanted to ask you if you or anyone have experience with this site to buy a property? I'm seeing lots of posts of homes that appear to be undervalued and sold by owner. I'm trying to avoid getting scammed what do you guys recommend when wanting to work directly with the owner but also to not fall victim of scammers? Do I need to hire a lawyer and a real estate agent if I want to buy a home directly from the owner? Is it best to stay all altogether and just buy a property that is being sold by a real estate company?

Thank you all so

We have rental properties in Brazil. I am looking for another apartment now.  I have found OLX to have little value in finding actual places for sale. OLX seems to be more of a place for Realtors to show off advertising for themselves and their businesses getting you into their office. Most of the time, the offering is either very old, maybe years old, or was never really for sale in the first place.  I recently spent two months around Santos looking at lots of places and only one of the listings I had found on OLX was actually real and for sale, I agree, OLX is fun and is a great place to shop for locations, neighborhoods, and even buildings, but I have not found OLX useful to search for actual places for sale.

Regarding lawyers in Brazil, when I stopped being a tourist and decided to be a resident, I found a guy who can help us with almost anything and when he can't, he gets us the perfect help. From immigration, my driver's license, to purchasing property, it's a huge help and relief.

HuJu wrote:

Hi Everyone; I hope you are well. First of all many thanks for your previous advice.  My wife (Brazilian) and I decided to buy a house in Brazil, which will get paid through a mortgage under her name; we just got married and I will not be in the mortgage, but I will be in the house documents as a co-owner. She is getting the mortgage from the Bank of Brazil. In the long run the idea is to sell a property we have in the US to finalize the payments of the house, but we want to wait a couple of years for this move.
Long story short, the mortgage will be paid partly by me using my Canada/USA bank account. Do you know what is the best way of transfering my monthly share? Can I pay directly into the mortgage even though I am not part of it? If this is not possible, making monthly  transfers to her account in Brazil will force her (us) to pay taxes on those transfers? Any advice you can give us on this?
Thanks a lot again!

_________
We use an auto-pay system from Santader for our apartment mortgage in Brazil.  When the exchange rates are good, we feed that bank account from the USA.  Remember, keep tax records from the USA because Brazil will want to know if your money has already been taxed or not.
We have used wire transfers, Zoom, Western Union, etc. and still find Wise to be the best, for us.

05/18/22  Looking for any help or suggestions you may have. My wife and I are trying to buy an apartment in Brazil and are trying to wire the money to the seller’s bank account.

Does anyone know how long the typically takes? We sent the money almost 3 weeks ago and the money has not arrived to the seller.

Sellers bank is Bradesco and we are using JP Morgan as in intermediary to do the Fedwire.

Any experience or recommendations are welcome as our seller is starting to get upset.

Dan

- @danielmurphy2035

05/31/22 Ok, we recalled the transfers. Thinking about working with a currency exchange bank and also exploring opening a bank account.

- @danielmurphy2035

We are thinking of opening an account with Banco Rendimendo. Looks like they allow non-residence to open accounts and we can do a large transfer. Problem with Wise is the limits per transfer.

- @danielmurphy2035