Moving to Natal

Thinking of moving to Natal? It's a great city, and here are some ideas to make the move easier.

Natal is a wonderful city to live, with a temperate climate year round, low crime rates and beaches galore. The city is small in terms of land area, the city is smaller than 15km by 15km, with nearly a million people living there. Lots of high rises dot the skyline because builders in recent years catering to foreigners and locals a like have been building luxury apartments throughout the city.

If you figure you aren't likey to live on the outskirts of the city, and you won't likely need to drive to the outskirts, the city shrinks even further. If you pick a central location, you are probably only looking at about a journey of 5km or less to get to any destination within the city.

Scheduling for the buses isn't great, but considering they run fairly frequently and combined that with the size of the city, it's not difficult to get around via bus. During rush hour, these buses are pretty loaded down, but aside from those hours, the buses are pretty calm and easy to use.

Driving is unfortunately pretty hectic. There are a lot of new drivers on the road in the recent years. These drivers are all young, and appear to have grown up with no experience of proper driving habits from their parents or the dangers of driving. Combine this with road construction and plenty of road changes and you have a decent nightmare for driving. Cars appear to be no more than about 5 years old in the city, but playing a game of "Spot the undented car" yields pretty low scores for anyone playing. The good news is that driving is only needed for short distances and parking isn't that bad, so once you reach your destination it isn't a chore of driving around in concentric circles looking for an available parking space.

Housing can be a odd ball experience in Brazil

Like almost all housing everywhere in Brazil, it has gone through the roof over the last decade. Renting a small, but luxury apartment isn't too bad though and there are a good number of options. You can get a decent idea of prices through the local online papers. Places seem to stay on the market for awhile, so take a good look around. You'll likely be shown half a dozen places that really don't meet your expectations and then one gem.

Apartments seem to be easier to rent than homes because most of the apartments are newer and thus the gems are more common here. Watch out for condominium fees though. Rent doesn't include them and they can be atrocious sometimes.

Houses seem to fall into a few categories. Old and larger but very centrally placed. Smaller but newer, again often centrally located. New, beautiful, huge and open floor plans but in the outskirts of Natal, or in some of the surrounding cities.

Lots of people have bought property with the expectation that they will sell it for a huge profit. Housing has been going up 25% to 50% a year, meaning housing has been doubling every 3 years or so. Even though there have been a lot of new housing programs and government backed mortgages, these growth levels aren't sustainable and in all likelihood we are seeing the end of a real estate bubble. Now that everyone has jumped into it, there are fewer and fewer buyers left and inventory is still growing. Housing is an odd situation in Brazil, people will toss up a sign for sale, a ridiculous price and let it sit for 5 years and see if anyone bites. Others want to sell, and have priced their properties accordingly.

This is pretty obvious advice now. Whenever you move to a new city, let alone a new country, you should always rent at first. You simply don't know where you are moving, what you will be doing or where you will want to live. By renting, you give yourself a year to sort all of these questions out and really learn if you're where you really want to be. Renting isn't that difficult but will require 3 months rent to be used as a deposit. It will be held in a bank account by the moving company or via the bank, or by the landlord. This is a standard deposit. You will be responsible for all utilities, and condominium fees and taxes. The only one to worry about here is the condominium fee's since they can vary by such a wide margin, from $100/month to $800/month! Make sure you know what they are before hand. I'm not sure why they make renters pay the taxes, since it's generally a small fraction of the rent. If you're renting for $1000/month, expect taxes to be maybe $30/month. It's a very small amount in the grand scheme of things. You will also be responsible for painting the inside of the place when you leave, unless it's in perfect condition.

Rents generally follow inflation, which runs 6-10% in Brazil, so expect your rent to jump by a decent amount each year. This is just part of being in a country that has a high level of inflation.

These are the norms here, and you aren't being taken advantage of if you're being asked to pay for the above fees.

Also note that real estate agents are often the ones renting out homes and acting as brokers in these deals. If you're in doubt about renting a place, look for a broker. They will act like a property manager and handle the money issues, holding the deposit and making sure the lease is done up properly.