As property prices around the world continue to drop steadily, Floripa real estate has held its own and continues to rise consistently. At the same time luxury property prices on the island remain below what you could expect to pay in places like Miami and Marbella.
In our most recent interview, Carlos Zoéga discussed the exciting, new service offered by his law practice. Carlos will now offer a full-service business consultancy that allows foreign investors the opportunity to perform thorough due-diligence investigations on Brazilian businesses.
If you are new to Floripa or to Brazil, you may be looking for a pleasant place to learn Portuguese. Located in the heart of Lagoa da Conceição, The Language Club is a well-established language school with over eighteen years in the business, with many, many happy students from all over the world. Not only does The Language Club (or TLC) offer excellent Portuguese language instruction, but the school also provides the documents necessary for obtaining a student visa. And if you need it, TLC offers foreign visitors that extra tender loving care: they can find a place for you to stay and even help negotiate your rental contract in the proces
Many parents moving to a new country face a perplexing problem: their children, who were doing well in their old school in their home country, now find themselves struggling with a new language, a new educational system, and new pedagogical methods. Worst of all, many schools are premised on the idea that all students of a similar age must learn the same curriculum and advance at a certain pace. Those who can’t keep up must stay behind and repeat the year. Well, what of students who are only just learning the language for the first time? How do they fit into this scheme? Are such students, no matter how intelligent, doomed to frustration and poor self-esteem?
Learning to speak a foreign language is often a question of trial and error, of bravely experimenting with new words and praying that the listener doesn’t look blank and shrug in confusion, or even worse burst out laughing. All too often a slight change in spelling, pronunciation or stress can radically change the meaning, making the language a minefield to be negotiated with the minimum of embarrassment.
You stand ankle deep in the warm sea. It’s sunset in late February. The sky has turned from pink to purple. Just as the sun is about to set behind you, you see it floating up from beyond the horizon: the moon, full and ripe. You are dazzled, entranced, captivated by the beauty of Florianopolis. You vow never to leave. You fantasize about buying that perfect piece of land, that dream house you knew you would find someday. But perhaps it is this bedazzled vision, full of hope and wonder, that have led so many foreigners —and others—to fall prey to the real estate cons and land swindles that occur so frequently on the island. So before you sign, take a look at the top five.
“Go on, hit me!” says Jairo, who is lying flat on his back, while I straddle his chest. “Don’t be afraid!” I curl my hand into a fist and strike. Before I can blink, however, I’m lying flat on my stomach and Jairo is smooshing my face into the mat with his forearm. His iron fist pins my hand behind my back. I try to move, but I cannot. “This is not a good position for you. If I want to, I can finish you now.” I can’t argue with that. I’m grateful when Jairo allows me to stand up again. His grins at me affectionately with his big, toothy grin. It’s my first lesson in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and I’m not disappointed.
Many foreigners who move to Brazil are accustomed to having fast and capable rescue services available 24/7. In the United States, if a family member loses consciousness or a child stops breathing, simply dialing 911 should send a highly-trained emergency team rushing to your door. But what about here? Now that you’re staying in Brazil, [...]
Sweet Home Floripa just made it easier for you live in Florianópolis. Click here to see a listing of businesses with the Sweet Home Floripa “Stamp of Approval.” From dentists and doctors to realtors, to portuguese teachers, lawyers, and schools, Sweet Home Floripa offers a guide to businesses with proven track-records of honesty, friendliness, and competence. Check out our directory and if you know of someone you want to recommend, please drop us a line. (more…) Read More →
Visiting Germany this week, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff angrily claimed that she would use all the resources at her disposal to head off what she called a “monetary tsunami.” This tidal wave arrives at Brazilian shores in the form of investment. In the recent past, such waves of investment would have been welcomed on these shores with open arms, like tourists arriving for carnaval. These days, however, as all expatriates know, monetary inflows mean only one thing: a stronger... (more...)
The image of Brazil as a rapidly-growing world economy is now familiar to any investor interested in the world economy. As a BRIC nation, Brazil has gained the reputation as a fast-moving, dynamic economy as rich in opportunities in the financial world as it is in mineral resources, agricultural land, and tourism. According to the International Monetary Fund, Brazil will close 2011 ranked as the 7th largest economy in the world by GDP, just ahead of England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_GDP_(PPP)_estimates That... (more...)
Dreaming about living in Brazil usually includes fantasies about tropical rain forests, surfing on perfect waves, or dancing the samba with thousands of happy revelers. In other words, Brazil means good health! However, ensuring that you remain healthy in Brazil requires planning and forethought. A good health care plan is fundamental for all expatriates. Sweet Home Floripa would like to spotlight the international health-care services and insurance provided by the UK firm, Aviva. Aviva... (more...)
The rise of the Florianópolis real estate market is an astonishing success story. A brief history of the real estate market in Florianópolis is sufficient to put this story into a global perspective and show why Florianópolis is fundamentally different from other comparable real estate markets around the world. For centuries after the Portuguese first arrived in Brazil in 1500 Santa Catarina remained a distant province disconnected from the commercial and political centers of... (more...)
Since 2003, when Brazil’s economy and currency last hit bottom, there have been few cloudy days. Sure, there was a bit of a downpour in 2008 after the Lehman Brother’s panic. The real dropped precipitously, commerce slowed, and real estate investment froze. But after that brief deluge, sunny skies quickly returned. As a consequence, Brazil’s reputation as investment-worthy nation with the economic oomph to come back from true adversity was greatly reinforced. Since then Brazil has... (more...)
Dr. Carlos Zoéga Coelho In our most recent interview, Carlos Zoéga discussed the exciting, new service offered by his law practice. Carlos will now offer a full-service business consultancy that allows foreign investors the opportunity to perform thorough due-diligence investigations on Brazilian businesses. This new consultancy service, Carlos told me, “examines all the non-legal aspects of investing in a Brazilian company. For example, we can now help foreign investors evaluate... (more...)
Go into an American or an English butcher and ask for picanha and you’re liable to get blank stares. Turn to your Portuguese-English dictionary and look up the word picanha and you’ll find a blank spot. No translation at all! This omission is not due to the fact that your dictionary is flawed or that Brazilian cows are built differently than American cows. Instead, Brazilian butchers divide up the cow in different ways than American or English butchers do. So what is picanha? How do... (more...)
If you are new to Floripa or to Brazil, you may be looking for a pleasant place to learn Portuguese. Located in the heart of Lagoa da Conceição, The Language Club is a well-established language school with over eighteen years in the business, with many, many happy students from all over the world. Not only does The Language Club (or TLC) offer excellent Portuguese language instruction, but the school also provides the documents necessary for obtaining a student visa. And if you need it, TLC... (more...)
Any foreign resident of Florianópolis who has tried to include documents from their home country in a Brazilian legal process will know how frustrating it can be to have their foreign documents translated by an official translator. As we’ve mentioned before, all foreign documents must be translated by an official translator before they become valid in Brazil. Previously, residents of Florianópolis had to endure long waits before their documents were translated. In the case of real estate... (more...)
Last month I interviewed Dr. Carlos Coelho Zoéga about how to go about obtaining Brazil’s Investor’s Visa and he outlined the step-by-step procedure. In part two of our interview we talked about rules surrounding the Brazil’s Investor Visa. SHF: I heard somewhere that you have to have a Brazilian partner—or buy into an existing Brazilian business—in order to get an Investor’s Visa. Is that true? Dr. Carlos Zoéga, Senior Partner at Zoéga Coelho & Advogados CZC: No, that’s... (more...)
