BiggerPockets

I found this website by accident few months ago and I am so glad to find it. I explored this site for a while and did not even think to introduce myself until now.
For the last one year, I am contemplating to invest in real estate. But because of international assignments related to work, it became a daunting task for me to make a decision either way long distance- always conflicting opinions from Pundits in this area... I really enjoy reading the posts here, especially from Rich Weiss, Will Bernard, Louis Bergman, MikeOH, Karen Parker, motiv8td, Stacy Dieckman, Jon Holdman and the list goes on and on. I really appreciate that despite their busy schedule, they find time to share their experience and help out others. I am out of touch with USA real estate market for few years now. I was posted in Iraq and Afghanistan on and off for 5 years. I work for private defence contractor and part of my responsibility is to become part of the team who will be on-site. Even though our team was never stationed at front line but we experienced our own share of stressful moments even though nothing compared to our brave soldiers stationed there. We spent some time on weekends together and exchanged some horror and funny stories and had few laughs together.
Back to real estate, I did some investment in rental properties 12-13 years ago in Chicago land area but it was mainly hold, rent and sale after making some profit. Also I have couple of vacation rental properties in Rio, Brazil. Right now I was able to save some cash for down payment and will be seeking some advice and guidance from the board how to invest it and willing to share my experience in managing vacation rental properties in Brazil, if anyone is interested on this board which I highly doubt it. But you never know!!!

Welcome to BiggerPockets, Nil! We're glad to have you. There are definitely some fantastic members here on the site and they certainly do deserve kudos for all of the great information they share with everyone.

Thanks for taking the plunge and getting involved! I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of you around the boards and the rest of the site.

Matt,
You are right about that I was not expecting this soon any interest on this board regarding Brazil. There are some local Brazilian boards in English related to that. If you are interested I can email to you since I am not allowed to post here.
But I can give you some information to give you a jump start. First, In Brazil price varies like anything from one place to another- even 100 miles can make a big difference. My real experience is limited to Rio real estate and also to vacation rentals. Even though I gathered some knowledge about some other areas as well over time. First there is huge difference in dollar terms of return in between regular lease and short time rentals. So you have to decide which way you want to go. Buying a real estate in Rio requires a CPF number (some thing like income tax number) which can be obtained fairly easy with the help of some locals.
Also you need to know some locals to go through the whole process of buying since it is pretty cumbersome.
There is no Title insurance concept there so finding a property with no leans can prove a daunting task but for locals there it is no big deal and lots of transactions are done every day without title insurance.
One suggestion I will give you to contact some relatives of your step mother and gather lots of information about the area where you want to invest.
Most of the vacation rental properties owned by Americans at least pass the 50%-2% rules with flying colors. The prices of real estate there don't appreciate like here but it does not go down either more like 5-6% a year depending on the location.
Interest rate of borrowing money for buying homes is very high (more likely 13-18%) and getting loan for a foreigner is next to impossible. So plan on buying with hard cash….
Let me know if you have some specific questions and I will try to answer them as best as I can.

Thanks Joshua for kind welcome!!!
One quick question for you? Do you I need to upgrade my status to display my signature information (email and phone) below the post? I was contemplating to upgrade my status in few days anyway so that I could use PM feature to anyone. Just in case if I had some specific or basic question for a member and likely answer is not going to be beneficial to other board members.
Nil

Nil,

Welcome to Bigger Pockets.

I've been given some great advice from a couple of the guys you mentioned up top -- Will and Motiv8ted -- and have read the insightful information provided by the others. You're in the right place.

Joshua has associated himself with A-list admin help who've fostered an incredible environment of encouragement and education.

I have good friends form Brazil who are bullish on its prospects over the next ten years. I'd love to speak with you about opportunities down there. Send me a colleague request when you have time.

Be safe in your travels to the world's danger zones.

Regards,
Anthony

Welcome Nil... I just found this site the other day too and I'll agree this site has a lot to offer.

One last point, I was reluctant at first to upgrade to PRO, but after I finally took the plunge, I don't think I could handle BP without it. It has so many additional tools that non-PRO members have. My recommendation is to upgrade.

Josh, chalk one up for Nationwide! This pro came at the suggestion of Will! - I love it too Nick, not having a pro account on BP is like not having a cell phone (you mean you actually have to pull over and use a grungy pay phone?!?!?!?)

Thanks to nil and Anthony for mentioning my name as well as Nick's. We both appreciate that. We are both happy to answer your questions and share our experiences with you all. All we need are votes on our posts!

This is a great thread, I agree Nick!

I upgraded to premium membership of Loop net a year ago at the advice of one of my friends.

Nil, while loopnet is certainly a usefull site, in my experience, it is way too expensive and the deals offered there are not deals at all (in most all cases). A true needle in the haystack if you will.

I hear ya. Great site to navigate but as you already stated, quite costly for what you get in service and limited good deals.

Louis,
After cruising through the site, I did not find any discussion regarding Brazil, so just assumed that there is no interest and that was fine with me. But it is a pleasant surprise for me. I joined this board with an intention of getting information about US real estate where I am planning to invest in very near future.
Anyway, based on your post, it seems like that you already did some basic research on Brazil. Fortaleza is getting lots of attention from foreign investors so it is good news and bad news as well. You know what I mean. So be careful. I had never invested anywhere other than Rio- so no first hand knowledge about Fortaleza. But real estate is real estate and legalities are the same.
I will help you anyway as you wish. Also if your schedule permits, in your trip to Brazil in 2010, spend couple of days in Rio just for vacation. It is very beautiful and I can help you with that as well. I am little confused about your residency comments. Based on your previous posts, I am assuming that you are heavily involved in real estate in US and you can not afford to live in Rio full time very soon. Correct?
I never contemplated to live there permanently so no first hand experience again but lots of my guests and couple of friends accomplished that successfully and some of them had smooth go and some of them had bitter experience because of wrong choice of middleman. I can verify it easily but the latest rule I believe is Reals 150,000 (comes to approximately USD 75-80K)-not much difference though...much better than previous rule of half a million USD. Just let me know what specifics you need to know and I will respond ASAP...
Nil