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A nice snapshot of why so many of us make pilgrimmages to Brazil, or even choose to take up residence there.

Sorry to learn of your Portuguese difficulties Ax! I see that your post has inspired a number of doubts with Solace. Here are a few of my own, if you don't mind. Is this the issue that has kept you from returning for nearly a decade, despite your professed plans here to return each year? Is this the issue that invariably causes you to enter into the discussion to berate others who pay market whenever the issue of 'compensation' resurfaces? And finally, you have been known to criticise others on this board for sex tourism, instead of looking into the local culture - wouldn't the mere attempt to converse locally enhance that noble aim?

What language barrier? A number of us have actually bothered learning the language (as others have posted).

Don't dump the trainer! At least, not yet. No, they won't act as your pimp LOL but they can help break the ice with *anyone* there you would like to get to know. That's how I initially met guys at my academia. Once general intro's are made and you see them working out later then you follow through but then it's much easier to meet after a workout. Also, you never know. I've never hooked up with a personal trainer I've worked with - you can see where that would get dicey on both sides -but one hooked me up with a personal at a different gym he was friends with. Naturally, that was a commercial transaction (and well worth it!).

I guess my experience is similar to Oz and Tom's. Here in Brazil especially if you visit frequently or live here part-time or year round, stay in good physical shape, speak the language, and are outgoing, it's not all that difficult to hook up on a non-commercial basis, have a longer-term thing going, or simply make new male friends. Speaking for myself the local gyms have been a focal point for all three categories over the years. Which is certainly not to say that I haven't also indulged in commercial pursuits here - this is after all an escort site. As Tom points out, once you break into a local social circle, as he clearly has in Merida, it gets much easier to meet guys.

That scenario is very common here as well! The vast majority of the properties on the market in Rio and Bahia (the two markets I know) have major title issues. One reason for that here is apparently the estate taxes at the state level that are imposed on inherited properties. The issue is not so much the rate (mainly 4-5% in most states) but the appreciated value - market valuations are updated frequently by tax-hungry states! So heirs tend not to pay, and they cannot take proper title to the property, although they have possession rights. Brazil does not force sales of inherited homes or family businesses for unpaid estate tax - which I believe is different from the US(?) So you have generations of family properties that have never paid the tax, and so also have no possibility of sale - unless they negotiate a hefty discount to account for the chain of accumulated unpaid taxes.... Speaking of succession, one point that you have probably already researched but I just mention as I would be interested in this as a potential buyer in Mexico: would the 50-year clock re-start for your intended heirs? And would your US estate documents be recognized, or would you have to set up say a local will.

Thanks Tom, very informative. Like yourself in the properties closed on in Brazil I have always sought out independent legal counsel, and followed fairly closely the process, which saved a lot of potential headaches. One particularly tricky purchase was an estate sale from the (eventual) heiress. You can negotiate a nice discount in such cases, but you absolutely need to do your homework; I would not have bothered but really wanted this particular property. The most common errors that local lawyers tell me that expats make here are not properly researching title issues (no real title insurance exists here and non-owners have been known to sell a given property multiple times!!); not checking outstanding liens or property taxes or utilities; and even not researching certain claims against the former owner himself that the new owner can be on the hook for (this is Brazil!).

Congratulations Tom on your upcoming purchase! Clearly you have done your homework. Like some others on the forum here I have taken that step in Brazil - and it is somewhat of an understatement to say that as an expat you really must keep your eyes peeled! Just curious, as I have zero personal experience in Mexico real estate, but have taken a quick look at some of the websites. Is your property far enough from the shoreline that you don't have to deal with the fideicomisso system that apparently non-Mexicans would otherwise have to navigate; if not, how strong an impediment was that to you - if at all - in making your purchase decision (maybe you just asked for a discount)?

You never know Tom. All it takes is the right guy to take you - and him - off the market for awhile. Or longer. It's happened to the best of us. Whatever happens, don't worry about others' judgments here or elsewhere (or the larger impact on the Brazilian economy - just kidding!!) and enjoy the ride for what it is.

I second that recommendation for private insurance! And, contrary to popular belief, you do not need to have Brazil permanent resident status to qualify for local health insurance. Aside from practioners on the rolls, you'll want to look into the various plans' hospital networks. For example, the Copa D'or is a world-class facility (and former hotel) that is centrally located in Copacabana on Figueiredo de Magalhaes, than I can personally recommend, but there are others. If you end up a resident, some local plans offer an overseas rider so that travel abroad including to your former home base is covered for urgent care, so you wouldn't need to purchase a separate plan there, which is what I do.

I think this is a great thread, particularly the last couple posts, with Tomcal offering to share his objectives with the rest of us - along with his rationale, and his strategy for getting there. I personally wish him every success here. It kind of makes us reflect on our own situation. Around a decade ago, I found myself traveling to Brazil, perhaps close in frequency to Tom, for both work and leisure, but for shorter stays. it seemed like I was actually in the air around as much as on the ground in Rio, so I decided to reverse course and make Brazil the base. I had and still have compelling personal reasons for doing so (who doesn't), and I had to put in the time to make the professional context work. I do go back to the states around once a year, and if friends or family want to see me more, then they have to visit me here. It turned out that even with the most varied of tastes there were a lot of worse places for them to visit as they show up way too often LOL

The Real has long been emerging markets' most volatile currency - and, according to Bloomberg, this year is no different. So stop fixating, fasten your seat belt, and enjoy the ride.

It's not like there has been some momentous rightward shift in Rio's, or Brazil's, electoral politics, for that matter, with the map suddenly overladen with Red States. For better or for worse, ideology has never really taken a hold of the electorate (most of us would say better). As for the politicians, they perennially switch parties - on a strictly opportunistic basis. Fed up with record doses of incompetence and corruption, Brazilians simply threw out the incumbents. Nationally, that meant the demise of the left-wing PT, and in Rio decades of the center-right PMDB - both long overdue. Of the few Rio electors who bothered to show up for the second round, the radical left (Freixo through his PSOL party), actually had their best showing in decades.

I purchased in 2003 and again in 2005 since I knew I wanted to live here full-time. I doubt I would have taken the real-estate plunge on a part-time basis (Tomcal's point). Although it turned out to be a very interesting time to buy in local or dollar terms, it could have just as easily gone the other way. Market timing attempts - especially in Brazil, given the underlying and often extreme volatility- are even more tricky (read: futile) than elsewhere. At the time, (financial) objectives were simply to eliminate rental and hotel expenses altogether and to establish a hedge against future inflation. For part-time buyers, currency volatility as you have mentioned makes a strictly financial modeling approach difficult to say the least. Despite some recent downward price adjustments, the local real estate market is still a bit frothy - hardly a screaming buy at the moment. With a further 20% haircut and the local currency where it was say at the start of the year, then the local market would be much more attractive for non-residents. Although the latter might well happen, don't expect notoriously stubborn local sellers to budge on price....

Agree with all posters above - you just could not be more central than that in Copa. And in between Nossa Senhora de Copacabana and Barata Ribeiro you're a block and a half from the beach.

As Riosul explains, it's just a butchered attempt at an English translation of the Portuguese conjugado. Quick apartment hunting vocabulary: Conjugado = Studio Cobertura = Penthouse Um Quarto = One bedroom

I can't comment on Carousel, but my friends and I have had great times at Cranberry's. Note: predominantly non-hustler.

OP, not to be insensitive, but this mini-rant is coming from someone who has also just complained of being manhandled outside of the sauna scene?

I agree, the writer has got a very good grip of the country's predicament. I think that two things however could well complicate the president's situation. The first has already materialized in that the administration failed in getting impeachment proceedings expedited and ideally (for them) wrapped up before Carnaval. Naturally Brazilians think of their YE vacation plans and holidays first. By then, particularly if inflation is worse (the latest numbers seem to indicate an acceleration) as well as the unemployment numbers, then a great deal more will take to the streets, placing additional pressure on anti-impeachment factions in the Congress. And if the leader of the Senate is also implicated in the Petrobras scandal (he is already under investigation by the attorney general's office), the president's support levels in that chamber and also in the congress' largest party, the PMDB, would likely drop precipitously, quite possibly tipping the balance.

Shall we go back to the topic at hand? Peter803, I think I can see where you are coming from in framing your initial two questions. But to be frank, after reading your other thread, the locale of your encounters may well prove irrelevant should you insist on those practices with the guys. In that case they will inevitably have their way with you, turning the tables. You can count on that. But perhaps this is what you are after in the first place LOL.

It's all very practical. Engage in trade to finance your own [often commercial, and seemingly preferred] romps with the ladies. Don't forget those pesky alimony and child-care payments each month. Those can really add up. It is often said here that the local justice system only works in enforcing those two payments. Indeed skipping out will probably lead to time in a Bangu cell, where, again, the trade appears to be not really their predilection. To add insult to injury, that will probably go uncompensated. All in all, better to head off to the saunas.

This ^^^^ Like a number of forum members I engaged in residential real estate purchases here just over a decade ago. At the time, less for potential capital appreciation and more as a hedge against inflation. Personally I would steer clear of the present real estate markets absent around a 40% correction through some combination of both currency and price depreciation. Even in today's deteriorating economic conditions that could take awhile to play out given sellers' notorious reluctance to lower asking prices.

This ^^^^ Good advice. Previous (non-chip) bank card was cloned once in the last decade, at a Citibank in Rio, during daylight hours, on a local holiday. Other advice to the OP: be sure to use a chip-and-pin card. Not 100% foolproof (what is?), but a quantum leap in anti-cloning protection. All Brazil bank cards have been chip and pin for a decade here. For good reason. Tourists using non-chip cards in Brazil are easy prey and frankly sitting ducks.

Another angle to the article would be how Brazil's own expat managers - working for local and international multinational companies - actually asked to be transferred back home during the 'boom' years. That was unprecedented, as the ones I know always looked to such companies as a way to get the hell out of their home country in favor of better opportunities. Brazil expat managers always seem to be in demand internationally as they have had so much to deal with in the local economy -managing in the face of exchange rate crises, capital flight, macroeconomic policies that change by the day, etc. The idea being that if they can succeed in Brazil, they can succeed anywhere. Of couse if that sounds like where the country is now, most of those managers have beat you to it and have already ended their 'experiment' and gone back abroad. Brazil's loss.

Thoughtfully written piece. I couldn't agree more with ihpguy that once the Rio Olympics is over, all investments and public works projects in the area will come to a grinding halt - just as they already have with Rio's fellow 11 host cities of the World Cup. So what legacy will all this construction still tying traffic in knots leave for the local population, and visitors? Cynics will claim yet another collection of white elephants. The Pan-American games did not exactly set much of a bar. Although to be fair it did leave Engenhao stadium for the Botafogo futebol team. Ask the club (and its fan base) how that went.