Happy Friday! São Paulo’s energy provider says the city’s week-long power outages have been resolved — but warnings of new storms for the weekend have residents fearing a repeat of the problems. In today’s issue:
- Restrictions to real estate credit
- Brazil’s goals in the upcoming UN Climate Conference
- Hunger and malnutrition in Brazil’s food-producing hubs
Access to real estate credit is getting slimmer
Brazil’s largest state-owned bank, Caixa, will reduce the amount it lends to middle-class families looking to purchase property. Beginning in November, the bank, which also manages federal aid programs, will lower its maximum financing quota for properties priced up to BRL 1.5 million (around USD 265,300).
State of play. Caixa will now finance up to 70 percent of a property’s cost (down from 80 percent) in its most common mortgage lending system, where interest rates decrease over time. In the fixed-rate system, the maximum financing will also be reduced — from 70 to 50 percent of the property’s value.
- That move will force buyers to make larger down payments, which will force millions of families to postpone their plans for buying a home.
- In addition to these changes to its own mortgage system, Caixa will also cap…