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Friday, February 06, 2009

Special Reports

Latin America Real Estate Outlook

Brazil's real estate market has the best outlook this year, but it will be affected by the growing credit crisis and economic slowdown.

STRONGEST: Brazil's real estate sector is the strongest in Latin America and has the best potential, experts say. (Photo: Embratur)

Poll

How will Latin America be impacted by the US crisis?

Not At All

Somewhat

Significantly

Results / Other Polls

BY JOACHIM BAMRUD

Latin America’s real estate sector is expected to see an overall decline this year because of the growing credit crunch, but it will fare better than in past crises and is still less affected than the U.S. real estate sector, experts say.

“It is still a bit too early to tell how deep the economic slowdown will affect Latin America,” says David L. Berger, managing director for Latin America and the Caribbean for NAI Global, one of the largest real estate services providers worldwide. “I believe that we are still early in the cycle for Latin America and Caribbean; the United States and Europe lead Latin America by several months. However, overall real estate transaction volume will continue to decline and property values will decrease.”

However, others are more upbeat. That’s the case with Edward de Valle, president of AMG Worldwide, a U.S.-based marketing agency specializing in real estate developers in Latin America that target residential clients. “I think that the outlook for Latin America will be good due to the fact that these economies are much more cash-based and less dependent on credit than most countries around the world,” he says. “Additionally, real estate in this region is far more inexpensive for beachfront, jungle, and mountain living when compared to other global destinations.”

Berger believes there are three types of countries -- top-tier, middle-tier and bottom-tier – which will see different effects of the credit crisis. The top-tier group consist of countries like Brazil, Chile, Panama, Mexico...

Full story

Keywords: Brazil, Caribbean, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Venezuela

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