RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Listening to Jose Carlos de Vasconcellos talk about Rio de Janeiro’s property market is like being transported back to the bubble days in the United States or Europe.
The 60-year-old, who came out of retirement to join Brazil’s swelling ranks of real estate brokers, is convinced that property in the beachside city is a one-way bet despite a near doubling of house prices in just three years.
“I’m confident that the market isn’t going to slow down any time soon,” he said, taking a break from his afternoon class at a Rio school for real estate brokers.
“I don’t see any investment that’s as good as property.”
Burned property investors elsewhere may beg to differ, but Vasconcellos is typical of the blissful optimism that has infused Brazil’s real estate market at a time when property in much of the developed world remains buried in sour debts.
Rio, boasting picture-postcard scenery and plans for big investments ahead of the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later, is not alone in a Brazilian housing boom that is inevitably raising fears of an asset bubble in one of the world’s hottest emerging markets.
Since early 2008 — just as
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