How to Avoid falling victim to a Ponzi or Property Scam EcoHouse Group Explains

Brazil is an exceptional country to invest in, especially after becoming host countries for FIFA World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. The best investment opportunity in Brazil at the moment is real estate investment, this mainly attributed to the governments Minha Casa Minha Vida social housing programme that was launched back in 2009.

Although credit is tightening globally, Brazil is incomparable in the sense that only about 10% of real estate in the country is currently mortgaged. This is the first time Brazilians on modest incomes have been able to get mortgages. Previously they were only available to the richest Brazilians. In the middle of one of the worst global economic recessions in almost a century, Brazil continues to finance the construction and purchasing of residential property.

With part of the purchase subsidised by the government, house insurance included in the purchase price, numerous taxes and other purchase costs reduced, very competitive mortgage rates for buyers and up to 100% loan-value for approved properties it is easy to see why Minha Casa Minha Vida homes are in such high demand from Brazilians.

Through the Anglo-Brazilian property giant EcoHouse Group anyone can now invest in a Minha Casa Minha Vida property, a property that is built and sold onto waiting Brazilian families. This is a very safe and secure investment as there are literally millions of families on the waiting list.

EcoHouse Group offer a return of between 15 and 17.5% for an investment of just £21,000, return depends of the length of investment, we can offer these return because we have our own construction team have office in 5 counties can source the best and most cost effective building materials. Beware of investment companies offering 30, 50 or even 75% returns on Minha Casa Minha Vida investments, this just isn't possible and is most definitely a scam or ponzi scheme playing on people's greed.

So in summary if a property or real estate investment sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Stick with the well know investments and companies you know and wont go far wrong

click here to find out more about EcoHouse Group's latest Minha Casa Minah Vida devlopment

What Is The Possibility of EcoHouse Brazil Bringing Minha Casa Minha Vida to the Mid West

The North Eastern states of Brazil have already seen numerous high quality Minha Casa Minha Vida developments launch over the past 4 years, mainly thanks to the North Eastern state of Rio Grande do Norte being the South American headquarters of Anglo-Brazilian property Giant EcoHouse Group.
Now other states are hoping that EcoHouse will launch more of their superior quality social housing developments throughout the country and with the Brazilian government expected to extend the minha casa minha vida programme for another few years at least this may now be possible.
EcoHouse Brazil are however tight lipped as to where exactly they will launched their next social housing project but the Mid Western state of Mato Grosso do Sul has been a state that has come up in interviews and press releases on a number of occasions. Here's a little more information about the recently founded state.

Mato Grosso do Sul (In English this translates as "thick forest of the south") is an interesting mid-western Brazilian state. It’s unusual because it is so recent, having been founded only in 1977. That was when it was split away from Matto Grosso, its similarly-named and larger neighbour to the north. Mato Grosso do Sul (‘MGS’) is sparsely populated.

It has only two and a half million people, about a third of whom live in the capital, Campo Grande. That’s not very many people for a state with about the same land area as Germany (350,000 sq Km). MGS borders the adjacent countries of Bolivia to the west and also Paraguay to the southwest. This is as well as the other Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Goias, Minas Gerais, Sao Paolo and Parana which are all next to it

The countryside makes up the vast majority of the land and it’s regarded by the many tourists each year as being both varied and beautiful. For example the popular Pantanal lowlands include forests, savannahs, open pastures and farms. This area is regarded as the largest ‘flooded’ lowland area on earth. In fact the name Pantanal was considered seriously as the name for the new state when it was created 35 years ago, before the decision was made to have a variation of its ‘parent’ state’s name. Another title considered at the time was Maracaju, which refers to the name of the main mountain range which runs from north to south across the territory.

In the so-called ‘Cerrado’ areas, mostly in the south and central regions, most farming people are Brazilians of either Portuguese or German descent, with some ethnic Italians too. Most of Mato Grosso do Sul’s economy is based one way or another on either service industries (46%) or on farming, both large and small scale. This latter mostly consists of crops (soybeans are important) and cattle raising and related occupations. Both of these are helped by the numerous tributaries of the mighty Parana River which criss-cross the state. There’s also an industrial and manufacturing sector which accounts for about one fifth of the state economy. Altogether, though, MGS accounts for only about one per cent of Brazil’s GDP. By the way, the general climate of MGS is mostly humid and warm but occasional variations at both ends of the temperature scale do happen.

The EcoHouse Group have offices in Brazil, the UK, North America, the Middle East, Singapore, malaysia and China. They have been constructing Minha Casa Minha Vida homes since 2009, and are reducing the housing shortage and giving people the chance to make Secure Investments through a secure government run programme.

EcoHouse Group Warns Investors About Emerging Scams and Ponzi Schemes

Award winning international property developer EcoHouse Groups warns current and potential investors about emerging scams and ponzi schemes coming out of Brazil.

EcoHouse Group is an award winning Anglo-Brazilian construction and Investment Company dedicated to bringing and end to poverty and homelessness in the over populated Brazilian urban centres due to an increasing housing shortage for the growing Brazilian middle class. Ecohouse Group have recently been involved in a campaign to increase the awareness of potential scams and ponzi schemes currently coming out of Brazil which are targeted towards the popular Minha Casa Minah Vida social housing programme and other property related business models.

Minha Casa Minha Vida, whish means 'My House My Life' In English is a government programme that was specifically launched to reduce the massive housing deficit in the country. EcoHouse are one of a small number of developers who speed up their building process by raising funds through investment rather than going though the long drawn out process of getting funding from the banks.
EcoHouse have been very successful and have already paid out millions to investors over last 3 years. Unfortunately this success has caught the eye of scam and boiler room companies, hell bent on relieving you of your hard earn cash and giving you nothing in return, this has become a thorn in the side for EcoHouse who have had their own investors questioning the validity of the programme and the investment EcoHouse offer.

EcoHouse have publicly reassured investors that they do not partnership with any of the scam and ponzi companies recently exposed and that some of these companies simply mention EcoHouse to convince their victims to invest, a tactic we are seeing more and more as EcoHouse grow as a company and become one of the largest real estate group in North East Brazil .

In a recent online campaign to increase awareness and to put investors minds at ease, EcoHouse have launched - amongst other things - a new Flickr page to showcase their developments and other interests such as retail, hospitality, premium homes and restaurants , the Flickr page is an excellent resource which allows current investors and potential investors the opportunity to follow the build progress on the numerous Minha Casa Minha Vida developments that the company has  underway  throughout North East Brazil as well as numerous  photo sets showing entire social housing projects from start to finish as well as photo sets showing actual investors visiting the sites seeing first hand how their funds are being spent.

Seeing building work, completed projects and actual investors touring the sites is very reassuring for investors as a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment business based on a nonexistent financial reality or business model that pays returns to its investors from their own money or from the money paid in by new investors, rather than from profit earned by a real business or project. These schemes usually run for a couple of years until they collapse due to investors either drying up or the scheme getting stopped by the authorities.

Minha Casa Minha Vida Housing for another 6000 families in Rio

The famous 'Minha Casa Minha Vida' affordable housing scheme has gained a well-deserved reputation in Brazil. The overall idea is to enable millions of people on modest incomes to be able to afford to buy decent homes for the very first time, helped by specially designed mortgages.

One of the latest developments is in the Jacarepagua area of Rio. It is expected to benefit at least six thousand people in 1,400 units.
The target is for construction to be completed by the end of next year (2014). Before that, hoves, bids from propspective builders will be assessed and contracts to build allocated.

That is expected by February 18 this year.

Brazilians Living in Britain Boost Confidence in Minha Casa Minha Vida Investments

Investors in the popular Minha Casa Minha Vida Social housing programme have reported feeling more confident in the programme after discussing the product with some of the many thousand Brazilian's living here in the United Kingdom, Brazilian's are proud people and even prouder of the government programme that will put an end to the housing deficit in Brazil

Brazilians and their descendants form the largest Latin American group of people in the United Kingdom. For many years there has of course been a community from the South American giant in England, Scotland and Wales but in the last few decades it has expanded very rapidly.

Estimates of total numbers vary widely but it is generally thought that the official statistics greatly under-estimate the figures. Reasons for this are many and are very controversial. The opinion is widely held that a large number of people simply 'stay over' when their permissions to be in Britain expire. On the other hand, some of them do get such legal extensions or 'long-term residences' in the first place. There seems to be a consensus emerging, though, that there are about 200,000 Brazilians (legal or otherwise) in the UK in 2012.
Most of the earlier immigrants were students or former students who remained after their courses, either legally or otherwise. It's true to some extent that the relatively large numbers from the nineteen-seventies onwards were able to come for one particular reason. It was because travel at last became practical and affordable for people other than the rich for the very first time.

Brazilians in the UK came to widespread public notice in 2005. This was due to the tragic death of Jean Charles de Menezes from Brazil, a resident and worker in Tulse Hill, London. Mr. de Menezes was mistakenly identified by armed plainclothes police as a terrorist on the run following the second attempted wave of July bombings in London that year. The chased him into Stockwell Station and shot him dead, thinking he was Osman Hussein, an instigator of the failed second wave.

Nowadays well over half of all Brazilians in Britain live in Greater London, many of them in the borough of Brent (estimated between twenty and thirty thousand there), Bayswater (often called by its nickname 'Brazilwater') and the Stockwell area where they live beside a large number of Portuguese people. Outside London, there are reckoned to be many Brazilians in other locations. These include Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Norfolk and Brighton. Throughout the UK many Brazilians seem to be working at lowly 'blue-collar' jobs, in many cases well below the level of education and/or qualification they hold. This is probably due to visa restrictions plus lack of fluency in English. The statistics from the Institute for Public Policy Research seem to show that about 32% are involved in cleaning and associated work plus another 26% in Hotel and Catering jobs. Courier occupations account for another ten per cent and so does the construction industry.
Over the last twenty years or so a number of business and services have been specifically set up, especially in London, to cater for the Brazilian community. They include opportunities for both long term investment and of course short term investment from Brazil itself and more locally from the UK. These comprise numerous cafes and restaurants, media outlets, counselling and legal services and of course media of print, broadcast and/or online kinds. Particularly interesting is the brasil.net paper and cyber news outlet and Rede Record a TV outlet to be found on Sky channel 801. There are an enormous number of musical and sporting activities, too. All these add to the vibrant and growing mix that is 'Brazil in Britain' today.
This close to home Brazilian culture for some reason gives the people and businesses of the United Kingdom a boost of confidence in the Country, it's people and it's economy which is evident in the amount of interest that Brazilian focused investment seminers get from the British public and Businesses. Last year property investment seminars such as those promoting the popular minha casa minha vida affordable housing programme were sell out events.

Triple Victory for EcoHouse at the OPP Awards

Wednesday was a very special night for the international property industry. More than three hundred representatives from companies operating around the globe gathered in London at the prestigious 'The Brewer' of EC1 for a gala evening.

The event was held under the auspices of OPP (Overseas Propert Professionals) and was to celebrate and reward the best and brightest stars in the overseas property world over the past year. A sort of cross between the Oscars and the Olympics for the profession !

We're very pleased and proud to announce that the panel of independent judges awarded EcoHouse not just one or two but three major awards. These were for 'Best Affordable Development', Best Estate Agency-Middle East and Best Developer-South America.

EcoHouse CEO Anthony Armstrong-Emery expressed his delight at the achievements. He made a point of publicly thanking all his staff who he gratefully acknowledged has all contributed to this great outcome for the company

Sao Paulo Brazil now a Major Economic Hub and a hit with Foreign Investors

Most people in other countries tend to have very settled views about Brazil. They think of the Amazon, the coffee, the football, the Rio carnival and very little else. But there's an awful lot more to this fascinating country than that. For a start, its sheer size, with an area nearly three and a half million square miles and a population now well over two hundred million. In fact in both aspects Brazil is now the world's fifth largest country. In economic terms, too the nation is powering ahead, with a GDP value which is the world's sixth largest. Apart from the USA, Brazil is easily the biggest and most vibrant industrial power in the Americas.
Within the country there's an astonishing diversity of territory including tropical rainforest, grassland, farmed areas and cities. By far the biggest built-up area is the coastal conurbation of Sao Paolo and the surrounding area. Not only is this city the biggest and most populous in Brazil ( nearly 50% bigger than Rio de Janiero for instance) but 'S.P' is also the largest city in the whole of the southern hemisphere and indeed seventh largest in the world. Not only that but the area's per capita GDP is second only to the capital, Brasilia. As well as a huge variety of domestic and international business centres, Sao Paolo also hosts the Stock Exchange and the Cereal Stock Exchange which is in fact the second largest Stock Exchange, by value, on the planet!

A city of this size also has considerable cultural and political influence, as you'd expect. For instance every two years it hosts the Sao Paolo Art Biennial and (more frequently) the famous Fashion Week, not to mention a host of international sporting events such as the Brazil Grand Prix Formula 1 and the Indy 300.
The city has a long history, dating all the way back to the first half of the sixteenth century. To put it in perspective, that was about the time King Henry the eighth was having his marital difficulties in England ! Obviously, the area like the rest of Brazil was under Portuguese rule for centuries. In fact , the original village of Sao Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga was settled some 50km inland from the very first settlement in Portuguese Brazil, Sao Vincente. The town then city grew slowly until the mid nineteenth century when it and the nearby port of Santos entered a prolonged boom caused by the world demand for coffee.

The original European settlers and their indigenous and African slaves occupied the country almost exclusively till 1888 when slavery was abolished. After that, Brazil saw the beginnings of its modern cosmopolitan nature when wave after wave of European and middle eastern immigrants came to the country. Members of all groups settled in Sao Paolo of course but Italians featured particularly.

When coffee as an important product subsided somewhat it was replaced by sugar cane and alcohol plus of course a great many other industries. In the present day this mighty metropolis is a major economic hub, encouraging and rewarding both long term investment and also short term investment especially in property and real estate where thousands of investors, big and small, from all over the world have already invested in the popular Minha Casa Minha Vida social housing programme. Real estate and other ethical investments opportunities will continue to advance the economy for many years to come.

Yes, growth in Brazil in 2012 but Disagreement about Extent.

On Thursday this week Brazilian news reports that economic analysts at the nation’s biggest private bank, Itau Unibanco, agreed in principle with the economic views of President Rousseff. However, where they seemed to disagree with her was about the scale and extent of the nation’s economic expansion which she so confidently forecast for 2012 earlier this month.


‘Dilma’ (the President is widely referred to by her first name) optimistically announced to a gathering of journalists that she expected GDP to expand by between four and a half and five percent in the coming year. However, Ilan Goldfajn, the Bank’s chief economist was more pessimistic, predicting a figure more likely to be around the three point five level. He did however accept that circumstances may change to improve that figure.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s Central Bank has been cautiously easing the SELIC (Sistema Especial de Liquidação e Custodia) basic interest rate, starting in the summer with more cuts planned for the near future, as the level inches towards the 10% benchmark from its current rate of eleven and a half.

Despite the fact that some see the ten per cent as a barrier below which SELIC will not be allowed to fall, Ilan Goldfajn feels that is not necessarily as rigid a barrier as they believe.

All this has implications of course for international investment in Brazil, especially in the construction programmes creating the affordable housing schemes so important to the emerging middle classes. Most people in the industry are hoping that Dilma is the one with her finger nearest to the pulse of Brazil’s prosperity in 2012!
Alternative Ethical Investments, Invest in The future, Invest in Brazil For More Brazilian Finance, Investment and Property News visit Ecohouse Developments

Growing Links Between the UK and Brazil

There has always been a close relationship between Great Britain and possibly the leading powerhouse country of South America. To re-emphasise further the growing links between Britain and Brazil, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg led a delegation to the BRIC nation earlier this year.

The purpose was to develop ties further in advance of 2012, a particularly important year for the two countries.


A main feature will be the Rio +20 conference, a UN sponsored meeting on sustainable development which the UK coalition government claims as an important priority. In addition there will be further visits during the year from Prime Minister David Cameron, and leading cabinet ministers from his government including both the Chancellor (finance minister) and the UK’s Foreign Secretary.

People in Brazil and Britain are also both very interested in the Olympics. These are due in London next summer, and the experiences and lessons to be learned and shared are of great concern. Remember that the Brazilians themselves will be hosting the Summer Olympics themselves in Rio in 2014 and they realise the importance of maximising potential as far as they can.

Of course, these all provide investment opportunities. This will have an important impact on the Brazilian economy in general and the construction sector in particular. Naturally, this won’t just include major projects such as the stadium and other infrastructure in Rio and elsewhere which will provide international property investment possibilities.

Additionally though, accommodation/housing is coming into focus. This is with a view to extending homeownership facilities to more modestly-waged citizens and workers, through the Minha Casa Minha Vida scheme in particular.

The Investment

Since its launch in 2009, MCMV (Minha Casa Minha Vida) has attracted numerous investment companies from around the world offering a range of different investment models, conditions and returns, Many UK and European investment companies started offering MCMV investment. unlike other UK based companies who are offering investment opportunities in MCMV EcoHouse are actual developers with their very own 300 strong team of construction workers, engineers, sales staff, legal and administrative staff based in Brazil, the UK, Singapore and Canada so are able to offer one of the best investment models on the market.

Many UK and European developers applied for a license to build under the Minha Casa Minha Vida Scheme over in Brazil but only a handfull qualified due to strick background checks by the Brazilian Government and the funding bank CAIXA. The task of building so many homes in a short period of time left the qualifing developers needing additional funding so they sort out investors.

The MCMV investment is unique and unlike any other property investments, investors can simply invest in one home and when its built and sold onto the waiting family the money plus profit is returned to the investor, this all happens within 12 months meaning the investment is not restricted to high end investors and a family or individual with minimal savings doing nothing in the savings accounts can make a nice profit.

The end sale price (or exit price) is set by the government so the ROI ( Return on Investment ) is also a set amount so there is no worrying about how well your investment is doing.

visit http://www.ecohousedevelopments.com/ for more info

Arco Iris Show Home Finished

Our first Arco Iris show home is now complete and open to the public. The showhome has received 100% positive feedback from both the public and the media, and is set to be featured in various upcoming publications relating to  Minha Casa, Minha Vida

More About our Arco Iris Development

Our Arco Iris Social Housing Development is Located just outside Natal, Natal  is the capital and largest city of Rio Grande do Norte, a northeastern state in Brazil.

Construction is really moving along as we have an expanding workforce of over 300 full time employees including 200 full time buildcrew on site in Brazil , EcoHouse are currently the only UK company actually legally building in Brazil under the Minha Casa Minha Vida social housing scheme.

What Is Different About Our Development?

EcoHouse Development own the land we are building on, and are fully registered with the Brazillian government, have all the required building permits and regualtions in place and our investors money is fully backed by Brazils largest bank CAIXA and Fully secured and protected by U.K. Legislation. U.K. Escrow account. U.K Regulated Lawyer through Lloyds London.

Our investors ARE now making a return on their money (within 12 months) and many are now re-investing in the next phase.

Please visit our construction updates page for images and video of our development