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The Good Life for Brazil Investment Property

Brazil's burgeoning middle class has a healthy appetite for consumer goods as well as a thirst for the good life. This desire encompasses a wide range of goods and the best part for Brazil property investment is that these goods include bricks and mortar.

The recent special report on Brazil in The Economist includes a feature on Brazil's growing middle class called ‘A Better Today'. The article takes a look at Brazil's social differences and how they are gradually being reduced. Perhaps not surprisingly, Brazil currently represents one of the world's largest consumer markets.

The Economist reveals that, although the differences between rich and poor are still apparent, Brazil is successfully narrowing its social inequalities. When it comes to the score of inequality (measured by the Gini coefficient), Brazil's score is falling and the graphic clearly shows that Brazil's score is approaching the US score. Statistics support the evidence of the closing gap between those with most and those with least. Extreme poverty in Brazil was halved between 2003 and 2008, and the middle class has grown from 42% in 2004 to today's figure of 53.2%.

Brazil is one of the few countries in the world today that is creating employment - 1.1 million jobs have been generated since the start of this year and jobless levels now are equal to those a year ago. High employment and steadily increasing wages are the reasons behind Brazil's growing social wealth and the consumer thirst.

John Prideaux, the author of The Economist's special report says that "Brazil is quite a lot richer per capita than India and China" and consequently, "Brazilian consumers are already closer to American consumers than many people appreciate".

According to The Economist, Brazil's middle class "wants the good life, right now". Signs of this come from massive consumer spending - in 2008, the amount spent by Brazilians came to a huge 85% of Brazil's GDP. Consumer credit has grown by 28% annually over the last three years. And as The Economist reports, you can see signs of this all over the country.

At the high end, luxury shops in São Paulo are doing big business. Louis Vuitton reaps its biggest profit per square foot from its stores in this Brazilian metropolis. Tiffany has more shops in São Paulo than anywhere else.

But the largest market of all is in the middle. Brazil's middle class wants white goods, cars and mobile phones and they want them now. As a result, Brazil boasts the world's biggest car market and upwards of 165 million mobiles as well as an increasing number of hypermarkets and stores catering for middle class wants. This growing and affluent class also "needs apartments and houses to put its new purchases in".

This translates directly into the potential for a booming market for Brazil real estate. Tipped by Homesoverseas as 2010's top property investment destination, Brazil's property market seems poised on the start of something huge. As well consumer spending, wages and employment, mortgage lending is also up as more and more Brazilians place their foot on the property ladder. With a shortfall of millions of homes, there is no shortage of demand and it can only be a matter of time before prices escalate, proving that the good life is definitely in Brazil real estate.

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