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@antonioggriffin I know several people who have used OLX, to rent, buy and sell. Of course it is only a portal, so poor response is not a reflection on OLX. rather on the advertiser.

My general advice would be to stay away from private sellers, as they always seem to have a vastly overestimated concept of the true value - especially if you are not experienced in the local market. But several brokers do advertise there (their ads state professional seller), so it is disappointing to hear of their poor response time, although this is Brazil...!

See if you can find a recommended bilingual broker (maybe through initial contact with an attorney, which should be FOC), establish a good relationship with them, and see where they take you. But they do need to specialise in your chosen area, and not be from out of town. Values can vary enormously over just a few short miles, just like everywhere else in the world, and only a broker local to that area will have full knowledge of this...

@antonioggriffin I think there is another important point to be aware of. Brazilian sellers (and brokers who have had no international clients), assume that the process to buy and sell is the same everywhere as it is in Brazil. Indeed why should they think anything different?

The fact is that the process to buy and register a property in Brazil is hugely different from North America or Europe, and vastly more complicated. Look for a broker/attorney with a track record of working with foreigners, and they can help you tip toe through the minefield that is the bureaucracy of ownership of a Brazilian property.

Once you know it, it is just a process that has to be followed - but all buyers find it very daunting the first time...!

Hi Antonio, we found our property through OLX, the owner just happened to answer when we called. We had to work out a lot of issues before buying! Such as caretaker living on the property leaving,  the correct paperwork,, etc.

We didn't know anybody to ask, but found a great lawyer that helped us finally through all the hurdles, God bless this man, so honest and good. The seller struggled more than us I think, because we remained firm in our requirements until everything was right. Now looking back, i think we were really lucky to come across that lawyer.

Regarding OLX , try different buzz words for your search, that made a big difference. Good luck!! Just don't sign anything until "things are just right"!!! Get help with that!

@ClaudiaMonica You make a very good point: if a new buyer inherits a caretaker (or any other kind of worker) when buying, the new owner assumes all the workers rights from before the sale took place.

So, if that worker later decides to take you to a labour tribunal for some reason (and this is not uncommon), then if he chooses he can backdate his claim to before you were even the owner - and you will be held liable!

Out of interest is this why you got rid of the caretaker, from advice received from your attorney?

Hi Peter, initially the previous owner said only two people lived in the caretaker property, but every time we came here, we saw more family members. It kept changing, so we realized the previous owner was not forthright. That's when we started asking this lawyer, who "opened" our eyes to the intricacies of "inhereting" a worker. It turns out this family had been born and grew up here, so, not only did the previous owner have to "settle" to have them move away, for our peace of mind, we also had them sign off on any financial responsabiliries with us.

To add to Claudia‘s comments.

That old  metaphor,… Buyer beware; specially here in Brazil, considering their laws are quite different. Here they don’t have consumer protection, really the majority of them will tell you whatever it takes to get you to buy-they consider misrepresenting the truth, a sport.

That said, don’t take anything at face value, that’s a big mistake.

Do your due diligence and find out what the laws are for what you’re doing.

Antonio, you are on your own, being a "realtor" doesn't guarantee quality. I think there is a lot of diversity, the good, the bad and the ugly. I think this is a result of not having regulation boards and such. Not really people's fault, just not a lot of "substructure" in many areas.

@ClaudiaMonica You are exactly correct. By making sure the previous owner got rid of any workers before you took over, guaranteed he had to take responibility for any claims during his employment of them - even if you hired them again 6 months down the road.

A friend of mine has owned a hotel for over 15 years, and a lady had been employed in the kitchen for about 30 years, basically doing food prep. She was asked accaisonally to help stir pots and help with cooking when the chef was busy or away at the bathroom. This, she claimed, was outside her work contract, so she took the owner (my friend) to court and was able to claim all the way back for 30 years, 15 years beyond my friend's ownership.

The labour court found in the lady's favour (they always do). The settlement awarded against my friend? R$170,000...no, not a mistype - one hundred and seventy thousand reais.

Has anybody acquired property from Viva Real/OLX?
I have contacted at least ten companies with one response (This response being the owner).
Any similar experiences?

I'm currently googling Realtor companies in the area of my liking. Maybe this will be better?
-@antonioggriffin

OLX is the Latin American version of Craiglist.org. 

Meaning, you will see postings for autos, toys, someone else's junk, and real estate.   

Viva Real, Zap and Imovelweb are real estate portals, I sussbscribed to ViVa Real and Imovelweb in the past, but gave up on them ( poorly constructed databases,, lack of decent reporting, shallow listing showcase, and gouging on billing practices such as switch and bait ).

But that is all it is left.  They are glorified ways to get Google Search Ranks on the top of the first page.

As for listing updates, most often it goes back to the listing broker. Who, in many cases won't take decent photos,, nary a listing has a floor plan ( even if took one yto bring a measuring tape and sketch a floor plan

Quinto Andar and Loft, there are good chances someone will drop the ball in the rental/sales process.  All you have to do is to drop their namesake and comb reclameaqui dot com dot br and you will get the idea.

Want a localized listing, visit your local based real estate office and ask a broker to pull up listings.   

Buyong here is a bureaucracy  in itself. No national MLS. Do NOT buy if it's purchase sale of contract. Run° i have too many horror stories. Make sure it has full documentation  escritura e matricula just for starters. Ask if it can be bank financed....if it can't  then it's  missing documents. Run the sale through a good lawyer... if you need i have one from the fb group. If you're. buying a chacara/sitio in some municipalities  it has to be over 20000m otherwise its built illegally. Some are starting to register lesser sized lands but it's  snail pace and not a surety so stay away from these too if possible.

chavesnamao.com.br

novaepoca.com.br

I watch all the people on social media and then search for their contact info. Lots of english speaking probaibly credible lawyers can help you as well.

[link under review]

I watch all the people on social media and then search for their contact info. Lots of english speaking probaibly credible lawyers can help you as well.
-@Gasparzinho 777

Wrong.  No such a thing as English Speaking Attorneys.  Slim chances to get a bi-lingual Real Estate Broker, and 1:10000 odds to get a owner seller who speaks English .

The gives a reproval /!\ I AM A STUPID SPAMMER /!\,6%, which for Brazil, isn't that bad.  You will get lots of broker-sellers, this is nothing short of a glorified portal.  It ain't a direct owner-seller portal, no matter what it says.

Owners do not spend membership dues to move one piece of property. They delegate such a task to a broker, and there are no exclusive listings in Sao Paulo a least. 

Chaves na mao is just another wanabe lame advertising portal for Real Estate, rentals or sales. Which can provide you with plenty adverted  listings for your perusal.   Different name, same garbage. 

if these things worked as heralded, there would be no Real Estate Offices.   

Go get yourself a licensed broker to open doors,  and then  some bi-lingual host. And pay the cabfare, lunch, and hush money, CBA. 

I am out of the retail business.  Waste of my time with door openings to apartments.

@sprealestatebroker

Your comment about a lack of English speaking attorneys and brokers may be true in SP (though I remain sceptical), here in the NE where I live I have had no problems finding them whatsoever...

@sprealestatebroker

During my fifteen years in SP, I have found very few people in general speak English around the city. From the airport to Ave Pauloista, it is not common. However, most professionals do. My doctors, dentists, etc. all do speak English, very well in fact. I had to have surgery a few years back and most of the people in the hospital spoke English. My apartment there in SP is now rented and I have located up to Sao Jose do Rio Preto, where I have purchased more property, about 6-7 hours north. Here, I find a lot of people who speak English, my relator does, and my property manager, lawyer, tax person, etc., all speak very good English. When I go shopping, I continually run into English speakers here, all eager to say hi and use their English. I drive a lot and love getting out and about as they say. In my opinion only, I would agree that few people in the city of SP speak English, but when you get out of the city, it quickly becomes more common.

Well, the sister of my brother in law is a lawyer in Rio and is fluent in English. Danielle Roseno, a brasilian lawyer who just moved back to Sampa after 7 years in Canada has a law practice where she deals with citizens and immigrants moving to Brasil. There are also 3 other law firms I found in 5 minutes who have english speaking lawyers, one with correspondent offices in my Canadian city.

Obviously. you need to perform your own due diligence before you hire any lawyer, or realtor, or empregada, etc, but, Brasil has 240MM people, so, they will exist due to statistical probability.

Websites are merely sources of information. The same due diligence rules apply.

    @sprealestatebroker
During my fifteen years in SP, I have found very few people in general speak English around the city. From the airport to Ave Pauloista, it is not common. However, most professionals do. My doctors, dentists, etc. all do speak English, very well in fact. I had to have surgery a few years back and most of the people in the hospital spoke English. My apartment there in SP is now rented and I have located up to Sao Jose do Rio Preto, where I have purchased more property, about 6-7 hours north. Here, I find a lot of people who speak English, my relator does, and my property manager, lawyer, tax person, etc., all speak very good English. When I go shopping, I continually run into English speakers here, all eager to say hi and use their English. I drive a lot and love getting out and about as they say. In my opinion only, I would agree that few people in the city of SP speak English, but when you get out of the city, it quickly becomes more common.
   

    -@rraypo

You are in Sao Paulo.. Bi-lingujism is a given, if you search after.

    Buyong here is a bureaucracy  in itself. No national MLS. Do NOT buy if it's purchase sale of contract. Run° i have too many horror stories. Make sure it has full documentation  escritura e matricula just for starters. Ask if it can be bank financed....if it can't  then it's  missing documents. Run the sale through a good lawyer... if you need i have one from the fb group. If you're. buying a chacara/sitio in some municipalities  it has to be over 20000m otherwise its built illegally. Some are starting to register lesser sized lands but it's  snail pace and not a surety so stay away from these too if possible.
   

    -@Cserebogar

All of above is correct. 

Lack of MLS.  MLS predates the Digital Age in North America.  It goes back to paper filed listings. 

It's a subscription based service, quarterly billed.    I subscribed to it. 

It works , as licensed brokers there honor co-broking agreements.  Out here, with nary an exclusive, no such luch. Brokers will steal listings left and right. 

I avoid co-brokes like a plague for the aforementioned reasons. 

    Antonio, you are on your own, being a "realtor" doesn't guarantee quality. I think there is a lot of diversity, the good, the bad and the ugly. I think this is a result of not having regulation boards and such. Not really people's fault, just not a lot of "substructure" in many areas.
   

    -@ClaudiaMonica

Well,

Your choice of Brokers ( it's not a Realtor, this is a misnomer ) out here is plentiful, yet, the ones committed to deliver quality are scant. 

That's my beef. 

    @sprealestatebroker
During my fifteen years in SP, I have found very few people in general speak English around the city. From the airport to Ave Pauloista, it is not common. However, most professionals do. My doctors, dentists, etc. all do speak English, very well in fact. I had to have surgery a few years back and most of the people in the hospital spoke English. My apartment there in SP is now rented and I have located up to Sao Jose do Rio Preto, where I have purchased more property, about 6-7 hours north. Here, I find a lot of people who speak English, my relator does, and my property manager, lawyer, tax person, etc., all speak very good English. When I go shopping, I continually run into English speakers here, all eager to say hi and use their English. I drive a lot and love getting out and about as they say. In my opinion only, I would agree that few people in the city of SP speak English, but when you get out of the city, it quickly becomes more common.
   

    -@rraypo

Count yourself one in a thousand. The majority of professionals I crossed path, well, let's say, if there is an English written contract to draft,. I end up doing most of the editing, on  both Languages!!!!!

Not even a decent boilerplate I can glean from any of them.   

That's how it bends around here. 

It helps I spent 28 years of my formative schooling and professional age in the US.  The last four in Real Estate ( I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering )  My standards are way above what  the median garden variety features  out here.

Try to get a  Brazilian Commercial Real Estate Broker to draft a Memorandum of Offer, and see the blank stares, or some poorly edited watered down piece, even in Portuguese!!!!! They are merely glorified doors openers, at best.

Same to be said about Attorneys out here.  Ninety nine percent of them have suferable English Language Skills.

And do not get me started with Architects,, Accountants, Public Notaries.  Lame ducks. That and the palm ups waiting get get greased. 

You have experienced a charmed life.

    @antonioggriffin I think there is another important point to be aware of. Brazilian sellers (and brokers who have had no international clients), assume that the process to buy and sell is the same everywhere as it is in Brazil. Indeed why should they think anything different?
The fact is that the process to buy and register a property in Brazil is hugely different from North America or Europe, and vastly more complicated. Look for a broker/attorney with a track record of working with foreigners, and they can help you tip toe through the minefield that is the bureaucracy of ownership of a Brazilian property.

Once you know it, it is just a process that has to be followed - but all buyers find it very daunting the first time...!
   

    -@Peter Itamaraca

That depends entirely on the deal and ownership structure.  And any pending impediments to a deal to go free and clear of incumberances.

I had an East Boston, all cash deal, three family unit , it took me a good part of six month to close it.   Issues with absentee ownership ( Brazilians again, go figure it ).   Sold it to Russian investors, flush with cash .

And then, my first three sales in Sao Paulo, all cash deals, took me less than two weeks to get through. 

And then, a Non -profit religious order in Sao Paulo with some on the block apartment holdings,, each and every closing took me a good part of 3-6 months, given the non profit bi-laws, board of director's ink of approval. Good thing then, they were all gimmies, so buyers stood patiently to claim tile to  the purchased units.

The procedures here can be just as simple as you may have in the US.   No Escrow, no Title Insurance, documentation needs to be in order, short lead times to pull paperwork ( it's mostly automated nowadays ). If someone is making it more complicated than it should,, then either they do not know their mettle, or they are making much ado about nothing.

Most of the time, attorneys here tend to overcomplicate matters more than they should. While your American counterpart actually helps to validate and facilitate closings ( my own experience  with deals Stateside and on Brazil ).

Because we have Cartorios everywhere in Brazil, typically a Property Registry of Deed Branch is pre assigned to given cities or neighborhoods. In between Cartorios,. your  gopher Escrivao  is often an Attorney who happens to be a Clerk,. so you end up paying for a facilitator of sorts. That's a Cartorio de Notas ( Cartorio de Imoveis is a Property Registry of Deed, while a Cartorio de Notas is your General Registry of deeds such as marriages amongst other triffles ).

Lawyers in Brazil, I do only recommend them if you can't read standard pro forma contracts edited in Portuguese. Which is the case for most foreigner buyers ., A lot of these attorneys drive Mercedes, Jaguars,, and BMWs, by the way.   These sometimes proxies, make money at your expense.  Not necessarily involved in Retail Straw Purchases, but they are making tons of monies on account of their charged fees.

    @ClaudiaMonica You are exactly correct. By making sure the previous owner got rid of any workers before you took over, guaranteed he had to take responibility for any claims during his employment of them - even if you hired them again 6 months down the road.
A friend of mine has owned a hotel for over 15 years, and a lady had been employed in the kitchen for about 30 years, basically doing food prep. She was asked accaisonally to help stir pots and help with cooking when the chef was busy or away at the bathroom. This, she claimed, was outside her work contract, so she took the owner (my friend) to court and was able to claim all the way back for 30 years, 15 years beyond my friend's ownership.

The labour court found in the lady's favour (they always do). The settlement awarded against my friend? R$170,000...no, not a mistype - one hundred and seventy thousand reais.
   

    -@Peter Itamaraca

Brazilian Labor Laws and labor relations  can be complicated to the point of bringing the worst in labor liabiltiies

Since the late  Almir Pazzianoto took the chair as a Secretary of Labor, this going way before Lula, Brazilian Federal Labor Laws changed dramatically for the worse.,

These days, foreign business concernns only buy property through proxies, on that account alone.   Which makes Brazilian proxies and partners extremely wealthy. 

Also, compound into factor that Brazilian Workforce Ethic varies by latitude, individual behavior, so there is a lot of variables out there to deal with. 

I used the ride commuter rail trains, subways, and eavesdrop on conversations from your salt of the earth working stiffs.  Talks about suing the bosses for overdue pay,, or doing work not in the job description were common nuggets i picked up with perky ears.

Fairness to the other side : It needs to be said, there were a lot of abuse of labor rights in recent past as far back as the 70's from bosses to workers  So, hence the generational backlash from labor to organized management and capital.   

What i do recommend in such cases, is to have local  management involved in handling labor issues before you make any hasty decisions on who to change job descriptions, fire, hire.  If you can afford, bring in HR personnel to sort through these affairs.

Also, the practice of outsourced labor here is very in vogue.  Plenty of commercial buildings I'\ve seen the outsourcing of maintenance, security, front desk for the sake of avoiding labor potential liabilities. 

Workers of today are not same as of yore.  Unless you are going to remote Southern Tight Knit Homogeneous communities, you are dealing with unknown behavior, practices, mores.   

That's my unfiltered  5 cents