Securing
the Pimp Pad For those of you who are fully convinced that Brazil holds the answers to your troubles, and care to move down here, I have provided a starter-kit of FAQs to renting a place here. For those of you who can't stand reading my senseless drivel, I've provided a quick and dirty answer to every question. Enjoy! 1. Big-time Realtor or Mom & Pop Shop? Short Answer: Mom & Pop Shop Long Answer: As you could imagine, foreigners will have to jump through a lot of legal hoops if they go through a big-time bricks & mortar real estate agency. (Think passports, visas, birth certificates, lots of money, blood samples.) If you are either running from the law or anticipate doing so in the near future, stick to the mom & pop shops. You may have to do a little more legwork (literally) walking from Mom to Pop and back, but you will have a much better chance of swinging a deal with less paperwork. (And less commitment is always a good thing; isn't that right, Tiago?) Plus you probably won't need a fiador. 2. What's a Fiador and Why Do I Care? Quick Answer: A rich dude; Because he may hold the key to your pimp pad. Not-so-Quick Answer: A fiador is the stuff of legend. Unfortunately, it's not the stuff of the oft-untrue urban legend, though it seems only "a friend's brother's uncle" has seen or heard of one. Basically, a fiador is a rich, rich person: In my case it was required that he own two properties within the state. He is the real estate agency's insurance that you, Joe Schmo (loved that show), will not skip town without paying your rent or fulfilling your contract. Now I know that you, Wiser McPhee, may know someone who owns two properties in your state, but I don't know anyone who knows anyone who owns two properties in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. So, if you don't have a fiador, you have to pay a healthy deposit. I think mine ended up being like three months worth of rent or so. Gulp. 3. Gulp Indeed. So what are the monthly costs of an apartment like? Gen-Y Answer: US$350 per month. Baby-Boomer Answer: In Porto Alegre, where I found my pimp pad, the prices are not as steep as you might find in Rio or São Paulo. Here 250 square feet of carpeted, kitchenetted goodness will set you back about US$200 for rent, plus another US$100 for miscellaneous building expenses. Utilities like electricity will range from about US$25 to US$100, depending on how much of a wuss you are during the opt-in air-conditioner months. 4. I am a medium-sized wuss. What are these "miscellaneous building expenses" you speak of? ADHD Answer: Laundry you have to do yourself and a dude to let you in after you've been boozin' it up. Alzheimer's Answer: In my phat pad, you pay a premium for location and building services like a 24-hour doorman and free do-it-yourself laundry, not to mention the view into neighbors´ apartments across the way. As with many things Brazilian, you really have to pay attention to make sure they're not swindling you. At US$100 for each month of a doorman and in-house Laundromat, I'm quite sure that I am being swindled. (This has moved me to attend a big goose egg of the monthly building residents´ meetings in silent protest.) Also, you have to pay for the 24-hour doorman and free laundry in your building. And for the 24-hour doorman. 5. That's funny how you said it three times for the Alzheimer's answer. You sure are funny. I also heard something about not having much time to pay your bills. What´s the scoop on that? Long Story Short: In Brazil they don't give you much time to pay your bills. Long Story Long: Yes, yes, dear foreigner, it's a common frustration: Your telephone bill arrived today only to have been due yesterday. Or, you went away for a long weekend, only to realize that your bill came the Friday you were away and was due on the Monday you arrived. Until you get used to the 5-10-day grace periods, welcome to the land of late fees! The best way to deal with this, moneybags, is to dig into your deep gold-leaf-lined pockets, grit your teeth, and pay the little late fee. Do the math: 5-10 reais is a small price to pay for a long weekend at the beach staring at half-naked men in Speedos. Or so I've heard. 6. Actually 10 reais sounds just about right. What about cell phones? Are they expensive down there? Will I need a home phone too? SMS Answer: hey gf u goin to ricks party i luv him sooo much <3 chill sista. Snail Mail Answer: Okay, assuming you can handle a Portuguese phone-to-phone convo, let me attack this one from all angles. The phone system is more complicated here in Brazil than the States. First, the cell phone: Though you only pay for outgoing calls, minutes are more expensive (about US$0.45 per minute). This quickly adds up, as you can imagine. Home to home calls, on the other hand, are much cheaper. Home phone plans start at about US$15 per month, which means that if you plan on making more than 33.333333333toinfinityandbeyond minutes in calls, you may want to throw in a home phone plan just for insurance. Plus, if you don't have cable TV, you'll want a fixed telephone to surf the Web (either at 56k or through an ADSL modem). In short, you might want to get both a home phone and a cell phone. A home phone gets you access to the Web, and a cell phone gives you access to indecipherable text messages from cute girls. If you can live without both of those pleasures, by all means go off the grid: Get out into the streets and practice the old-school methods of communication, like whistling at aforementioned cute girls. Cost? About US$15 for a cheap cell phone plan, used sparingly, and US$20 for a home phone, also used sparingly. ADSL at 600 kbps will lighten your carteira of about $US60 more. Man, I really am getting swindled here. So there you have it, the insider's guide to finding your own place in Brazil, then bending over and taking it while they swindle you dry. I hope that these 6 nuggets of wisdom serve you well. If you're still dry for info, feel free to email me and ask whatever other questions come to mind. I'll do my best to manufacture a satisfactory answer. Carl
Winter is a Taiwan-born Brazilian/American dual-citizen, living in Brazil
for the first time at the age of 28. The posted stories, pictures, digit$ and flix are meant to give an indication of the daily fabric of Brazil —
from an outsider's inside perspective.
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