Check out This Beach View
Date: 05/01/2008
You can own this view for less than $100,000.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Uruau, Brazil
Find out more about beachfront property in Brazil in International Living Postcards—your daily escape
Every time I take a trip near a coast, no matter what country I’m in, I try to see what type of beach house I can buy for $100,000. These days, it’s getting hard to find any type of house near the beach for that price.
But because the cost of land is low in northeast Brazil, and the cost of construction so affordable, you can buy a lot and build your own beach home here for less than $100,000.
In fact, when I was in Brazil a couple of weeks ago, some beach lots I saw in Uruau, a fishing village 50 miles east of the big First-World city of Fortaleza, would be perfect for this.
What I liked about this town was that even though it’s a little village with cobblestone streets, it still has all the services you need. An Internet café, a clinic, shops, markets, and a rustic beach restaurant. And just like everywhere else in Brazil, it’s doing well. Even in this little village, people are renovating their homes, building an extra room, putting up a better roof. This would be a fine place to have a beach house.
Normally, I go for pure beachfront, but there’s an unusual elevation at this site that gives second-tier lots much better views (see the photo above). Beach lots in Brazil are small by North American standards. The lots in Uruau are 450 square meters…that’s just over one-tenth of an acre. That’s plenty big enough for Brazilians…but you’d probably want to buy two lots side by side.
These lots cost $16,000 each…so for $32,000 you have a good-sized site with 30 meters of ocean view. Construction costs in northeast Brazil are low--you can build for as low as $400 per square meter…and as much as $800 per square meter for very high spec. At those prices, if I was building a house here, I wouldn’t scrimp on buildings costs.
When I met with architect Rogério Braga, he showed me a rendering of what a $560-per-square-meter build would look like. That’s what I’d go for. So, a 100-square-meter house would cost $56,000…the cost of the site brings the total price up to $88,000. If this were my house, I’d want a pool, even though it’s so close to the ocean. That’s another $9,000…for a total cost of $97,000.
As for the project where the lots are…the road is in, some houses were built, and more were under construction. Developers have bought parcels of adjoining land, and there are plans to build and sell condos. In other words: The community is underway.
To see pictures and video of where these lots are, along with more good-value beach picks along Brazil’s northeast coast, watch the Brazil Beachfront Webinar I just recorded with Dan Prescher and Len Galvin.
If you want a list of any of the contacts mentioned in the Webinar, including the architect I mentioned above, look up the Webinar fact sheet after you finish viewing the recording.
Editor’s note: Ronan McMahon is executive director of Pathfinder, IL's preferred real estate scouting group, and will speak about the four strategies you need for international real estate investing at IL’s Ultimate Event in Cancun, May 28–31.
Read related articles:
- The Best City Beachfront Deal Right Now
- The Cheapest Way to Own Beautiful Beachfront
- “Hundreds of Miles of Virgin Beach…”
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