Comments on: Buying Property: How to exchange US Dollars For Brazilian Reals

By: gt3b

gt3b — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:54:10 +0000

Quad.. Here’s the best way.. Contact a brazilian store in US and send them the money (USD). They will make a deposit (Reais) in your wife’s account in Brazil with a much better rate.

It’s needless to say that it’s not legal and you may have problems with tax return. But that’s the best option (regarding currency exchange). I recommend you to make many small transfers just to be safe. In this case you have to buy the property and make the registration with a much lower value, so you won’t have too much trouble with IRPF.

HSBC, Itaú, Banco do Brasil and others have the same kind of policy. If you want to make it all legal, check with Receita regarding something called “Carnê Leão”, you may have to pay much more than you expect in taxes.

By: SamIWas

SamIWas — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:18:32 +0000

Have you checked if the Brazilian bank allows you to open a USD account. I can open accounts in all kinds of currencies at my bank and they can’t stiff you on the exchange rate if it’s not there Then, if you REALLY want to save money, talk to the seller and convince them to accept payment in USD at around spot rate. If they’re buying a next place with USD, they might go for it. They might even go for it if they aren’t; you never know

By: jeff419

jeff419 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:25:24 +0000

Dude, just use Western Union to send money and they’ll payout in the local currency.

Also, I used xoom.com to send money to Peru recently. Not sure if it works for your situation but you might as well check it out.

By: luciodr

luciodr — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:57:49 +0000

QuadZilla, I’m a Brazilian living in Australia and always need to move money back and forward. I believe the best services are from a company called “Cotacao”.
seguro(dot)cotacao(dot)com(dot)br/index (dot) asp

I always deal with them and Theres no better rates, and you always can bargain for better deal.
The only;y problem they ask you a ton of docs, but worth your money,
Give a try.
Cheers
Lucio

By: QuadsZilla

QuadsZilla — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:32:42 +0000

I went to HSBC today and do have a premier account with them in the US. I don’t have an account here in brazil yet but I asked about their rates.

They told me 1.678 to 1.76 was their spread. Slightly better than Caxia but still a pretty hefty spread.

By: QuadsZilla

QuadsZilla — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:32:23 +0000

If I send from 1 paypal account to another I have to pay the transaction fee of around 3.5%. I don’t see how I can exchange currencies within an account and ask for a check to be sent in a foreign currency.

By: BobbySteel

BobbySteel — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:17:53 +0000

Usually xe.com is the best for high dollar stuff but they don’t handle BRL just Mexican Pesos for all of LatAm.

Since none of the usual houses handle BRL, your best best may be with a good international bank. HSBC has somewhat reasonable prices if you open a Premier account in the US and Brazil both. $100k in one account gets you “premier” – you can always park some there a little while then close it out after you transfer later.

By: b00ty

b00ty — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:06:56 +0000

To trade at market rates open a forex account – the only I can suggest is to google http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=forex+broker – I didn’t use it personally not having that much money. It’s wise to read the wikipedia arcticle about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market. And you would have to ask how to pay in and withdraw in the best way – an international bank transfer in Brazilian reals might still eat you considerable percentage of money.

For my smaller purposes I was OK with http://www.lcctransenvio.com/ which is cheaper than: PayPal, bank transfer, Western Union, Money Gram when sending to Poland. They send to Brazil as well of course.

By: QuadsZilla

QuadsZilla — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:34:27 +0000

My wife is Brazilian but that didn’t help as much as one might expect in finding a property. Really, the only way to know what you are buying is to go to brazil and look at properties.

By: julien

julien — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:29:57 +0000

I’m actually really curious about how you went about finding a place to buy in Brazil. Is your wife Brazilian?