Brazilian industrialist Victor Correa da Silva started vacationing in South Florida in 1988. Today, he owns three luxury condominimums on exclusive Williams Island in Aventura and has moved his family there full-time, while he commutes to South America on business.
“It’s like Rio de Janeiro — good weather, beaches, joyful,” said da Silva describing his choice of South Florida, from his 10th floor condo overlooking the water. “It’s like a Rio that works.”
Homeowners from western Europe, Russia and Latin America share that ebullience. Foreign buyers now purchase almost half the luxury condominiums sold in Dade County and a growing share of the upscale properties in Broward and Palm Beach counties as well.
Brazilians are the fastest-growing segment among those buyers, with a South Florida condo becoming a must-have item for many in Brazil’s elite.
“You couldn’t have the volume of residential construction in South Florida without those sales,” said David Dabby, senior vice president at Appraisal and Real Estate Economic Associates, a consulting firm.
In fact, South Florida now ranks as the top market in the United States for home sales to international buyers.
Miami isn’t the sole draw.
Ask Neil Farman, president of Plaza Properties Group, which is developing The Palms, two luxury high-rises in Fort Lauderdale, with apartments selling from $400,000 to $4.7 million each.
“I was surprised at the number of international people moving north,” said the Broward developer. “We thought the share of international buyers would be under 10 percent, and we’re already over 15 percent.”
Or ask Jim Cohen, a partner in Boca Raton Developers, which is marketing three luxury developments in Palm Beach County, with apartments priced from $220,000 at Towns End Place to $5 million at the Aragon.
“We’re targeting overseas buyers,” said Cohen, pointing to a network of brokers and agents in Europe and South America. “We’ve been to Brazil. We’ve even been to Singapore with an international real estate trade show.”
Foreign buyers purchase an estimated $500 million a year in real estate in South Florida, a level relatively steady throughout this decade. But the origin of those buyers varies over time, as countries and their economies change.
For years, Europeans have been playing a critical role in what’s been dubbed the “Florida Riviera.” Italians, Germans, Swiss and French, and increasingly Russians, are snapping up waterfront condominiums.
“They are a little bit bored with Spain’s Costa del Sol, and it’s cheaper than the French and Italian Riviera,” said broker Alicia Cervera of Miami-based Cervera Real Estate, which caters largely to Europeans and Latin Americans.
Russians are especially noticeable in some oceanfront areas, because they often buy together.
“There are buildings on the beach that have sold 60 percent to Russians,” said Jeffrey Flick, president of Miami-based Flick Mortgage Investors, which caters largely to foreign buyers.
But no single country appears to produce more luxury home buyers today than Brazil, home to 160 million people and South Florida’s biggest trading partner.
“For upscale Brazilians, the same way you have an Yves St. Laurent shirt or a Louis Vuitton bag, people want to have a condo in Miami,” said Brazil-born attorney Paolo Miranda of Florida’s Greenberg Traurig law firm.
“Some keep it for business relations. They say, `Use my condo in Miami for a week,’ ” in much the same way that U.S. executives offer seats in company sports boxes at professional arenas, Miranda said.
Brazilian business is so strong, in fact, that several condo developers in Dade keep sales offices in Brazil. At least one real estate agency in Aventura specializes in sales to Brazilians. And at least two Brazilian companies — including Odebrecht Group — are building luxury high-rises in South Florida to cash in themselves.
Why the rush from Brazil?
Part of the answer is finance, part Florida itself.
For rich Brazilians, a South Florida home is cheap and safe. It helps guard against possible devaluation of their currency against the U.S. dollar and also allows refuge from Brazil’s pervasive crime, including all-too-common kidnappings of the rich for ransom.
“Safety is our main concern,” said Monica da Silva, the industrialist’s wife and a veterinarian. “In Rio, I have to live in fear. Here, I don’t worry when the children go out to play.”
In Florida, Brazilians also get long-term mortgages at low interest rates — a combination unavailable in their nation, where loans tend to be short-term and interest rates can top 50 percent a year.
That’s the result of years of high inflation and currency devaluations, which stabilized only the past several years. Brazil’s inflation last year dropped to just 11 percent, down from 1,000 percent in 1994 and nearly 2,500 percent the year before — as the currency exchange rate held steady.
Brazilian banks long have offered high interest rates to offset inflation and lure savings that would otherwise lose value because of high inflation. They also get loans short-term because of longer-term uncertainty and higher financial risk in Brazil.
Then, there’s Florida’s changing image. In the 1980s, Miami was a place that upscale Brazilians traveled through to take their children to Walt Disney World. The rich frequented New York.
But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as South Florida became more international, Brazilians began to discover the Miami area as a destination in itself.
