Decoding Mortgage Insurance in Brazil: An Expat’s Guide to “Seguro Habitacional”
Caipirinhas, Condo Keys, and the First Time I Heard “Seguro Habitacional” I still remember the humid Tuesday afternoon I walked out of Banco do Brasil’s branch on Avenida Paulista with a stack of loan paperwork thicker than a Rio traffic jam. Just a week prior, in Medellín, I had been sipping coffee on my balcony […]
Dollar Mortgages vs. Peso Mortgages: Which Should You Choose?
That Morning in Medellín: An Expat’s First Brush with Mortgages It was 7:00 a.m. in Medellín, and the sun was already washing over the red-brick buildings of El Poblado. I was sipping a tinto (that tiny, potent Colombian coffee) when my realtor, Carolina, slid a pile of papers across the café table. Right on top […]
Using Colombian Residency to Unlock Better Mortgage (Hipoteca) Deals: An Expat’s Guide to Financing Your Dream Home
A Café in Medellín and an Unexpected Lesson in Financing I learned my first real lesson about Latin American financing while sipping a thick tinto coffee in a tiny café near Parque Lleras, Medellín. A decade earlier, I had been living in the sweltering heat of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where my landlord insisted on […]
Mortgage Options for Foreigners in Colombia’s Major Banks: My Playbook After Four Countries and Countless Cafés
From a Santo Domingo Balcony to a Medellín Banker’s Desk I still remember sipping a late-night mamajuana on my apartment balcony in Santo Domingo, thinking my next stop in Latin America would be all beaches and bachata. Instead, three months later, I was in Medellín’s leafy Laureles neighborhood, pounding espresso in a corner café while […]
Navigating Mortgage Interest Rates in Brazil vs. the Dominican Republic: An Expat’s Guide to Smart Financing
From a Mango Smoothie to a Mortgage — My First Wake-Up Call on Caribbean Interest Rates It was a sticky Tuesday in Santo Domingo when my real-estate agent pushed a frost-rimmed mango smoothie into my hand and said, “James, the bank just quoted you 11.5 % on the hipoteca.” I nearly spit the drink onto […]
How Expats Can Get a Mortgage (Hipoteca) in the Dominican Republic
A Sunset in Santo Domingo and an Unexpected Phone Call I was sitting on the malecón in Santo Domingo, sipping a painfully sweet morir soñando, when my phone buzzed with a Dominican number I didn’t recognize. The caller was a loan officer from Banco Popular who had finally approved my pre-calificación de hipoteca—a mortgage pre-approval […]
Co-Signing with a Local in the Dominican Republic: Risks & Rewards
The Night I First Learned What “Ser Fiador” Really Means A few years ago, I was sipping a morir soñando on the breezy balcony of my friend Luis’s apartment in Santiago de los Caballeros. The sun was setting behind rows of pastel-painted houses, and the distant merengue beat floated up from the calle below. Luis […]
Refinancing Property in Colombia: Can Expats Qualify?
From a Caribbean Hammock to a Bogotá Notary—My First Brush with Latin American Loans I was half-asleep in a faded hammock on the north coast of the Dominican Republic when my phone buzzed with an alert that would spark my obsession with Latin American real estate. A notification from my Colombian bank app announced that […]
Mortgage Down Payment Requirements Across Latin America: What Every Expat Needs to Know
Caribbean Sunburn and a Lesson in Cash Up-Front Three summers ago I was sweating through my linen shirt in the colonial streets of Santo Domingo, clutching a folder of bank statements and pay stubs. I had found a pastel-painted villa in Zona Colonial that I wanted to turn into short-term rental units, but the Dominican […]
How Credit History Impacts Mortgage Approval in Brazil
The first time I realized that credit cultures can feel like completely different planets was on a balmy Thursday evening in Medellín, Colombia. I was sipping a maracuyá juice on my apartment balcony, thinking about how my landlord’s cousin had managed to buy a brand-new apartment with what, to my American eyes, looked like a […]