Maicon Reis Fonseca

Investing for income

This is for property designed to generate rental income — not property that could, at some point, also be let. The criterion is the project: layout, operations and amenities planned for it from the drawings, on paper. Position on the coast, view and layout remain separate questions, answered on each property’s page.

Today there are one development in Penha. The list is short on purpose: a product only comes in when the developer’s material supports the purpose, and each page shows what still depends on a document.

How I read an income property

  1. The entry price and the payments until handover

    Not the instalment: the deposit, the monthly payments, the top-up payments and when each falls due. The money that goes out before any income comes in.

  2. When the income starts

    Off-plan, after delivery, furniture and preparation to operate. An income property delivered in five years is a five-year investment with no yield.

  3. Gross revenue is not income

    Out of the nightly rate come the platform or management fee, cleaning, condominium fees, property tax, power, internet and maintenance. The figure that counts is net, and it is shown line by line.

  4. An estimate is not a return

    A developer’s projection is shown with its author, date, base unit and assumptions — or with their absence. No page in this section guarantees a return.

  5. What has to be on paper

    The condominium bylaws, which do or do not authorise short-stay rental, and the contract, with the adjustment index and dates. Until they are read, the page says they are pending.

Income opportunities

Short-stay rental. Nightly stays for guests passing through — the season, a weekend, a short trip —, through a platform or a management company. Revenue moves with the nightly rate and with occupancy; the cost of running the unit is there even in empty months.

What does not come in

A home advertised as an investment, a return without assumptions and «guaranteed appreciation». If you own a property and want to know what it would earn, the conversation starts with an appraisal. Property appraisal

An income unit is compared by the whole sum.

Tell me how much you want to commit and how soon you need the property to start earning. I will reply with the units that fit and the full payment plan of each.

Talk about investing

Maicon Reis Fonseca, licensed real estate broker and appraiser.