Things that annoy me #2

I have decided that this particular blog should be standalone.  You'll see why.

Topic: Brazilians taking the piss when it comes to renting out apartments because you're a gringo. 

This is a message for every Brazilian out there who has a really shitty piece of property and thinks "hey, I won't refurbish it, I'll just rent it out in the state it's in - cockroaches and all - to a gringo who will pay twice the price for it".  REALITY CHECK: WE WON'T.  Why do Brazilians think that tiny/old substandard apartments that haven't been cleaned, painted, properly furnished or kitted out with half-decent kitchen equipment are ok to let out on a short-term furnished basis to gringos?  I mean, they wouldn't accept that level of crapness for themselves, why do they think that we would? 

I come from the 1st world, ok?  Yeah, I'm willing to spend a bit of money but I also want some "vale a pena" (value for money) and there is such a place called THE INTERNET where I can check what the normal market rate is in the area, dipshit.  I might not be fluent in Portuguese but I can bloody well navigate myself around zap.com.br.  I can even factor in the condo fee, roughly how much the bills are costing you, and add a bit more for the fact the place is furnished and work out a fair price - with a profit margin and everything!

We went to see a couple of apartments before New Year's.  One of them was old, seriously dirty, the little furniture it did have was really old and in bad condition, it was missing a bed (supposed to be a 2-bed flat), didn't have a washing machine or a decent table to eat on (Brazilians always have a decent table to eat on in their homes: we know), and one of the bedrooms didn't have a door on it.  No, scratch that, it was missing a wall.  We turned that one down. 

The other one was in a cheap part of a decent area, building was nice, but the place was fucking tiny.  They had clearly taken an ok-ish-sized one bedroom flat and put in an extra wall to make two bedrooms.  Again, the flat wasn't particularly clean, furniture was cheap and tatty, there was barely enough room to swing a cat around in the living room, the fridge freezer was about 20 years old and probably hadn't been defrosted in that long either.  Plus, they wanted about R$2700 for it all in, which was just a joke.

A Canadian guy in our Portuguese class had booked to go to Rio for NYE but cancelled at the last minute because the idiots that he had reserved (not paid, clever boy) an apartment with decided at the last minute to double the price for the weekend, so he just didn't go.  They could have made some money over the period, but because they got greedy (very common here) they lost a paying customer 2 days before NYE.  Dumbasses.

Moral of the story: if you have some money, you want to invest in property, are willing to provide a decent level of furnished & all-inclusive accommodation and you're not a greedy motherfucker, you would make an absolute killing over here.