Brazil's Nearly Non-Existant Middle Class

The fact that Brazil's middle class is nearly non-existent reveals itself when one goes shopping for an apartment or anything to put in said apartment.

When we were apartment hunting in Rio, we initially were looking for a 2 bedroom place. 

We soon realized that most two bedroom apartments were quite small, less than 1,000 square feet (or approximately 100 square meters)... "too small" even though we don't have any "stuff"... right.  (We do  want a lot of people to come visit us though which is why we do need a bit of space, to accomodate visitors.)

Aside: Exact metric conversions here, for more click here.

100 square meters = 1076 square feet
150 square meters = 1615 square feet
200 square meters = 2153 square feet

So, LOOSELY, multiply by ten is the rule...

Less than 1,000 square feet would be a bit squishy for us especially with guests and especially when we spend much more time at home here than we would at home being that we do not have the same "freedom of movement" as we enjoy in North America (especially after dark).  We required space to allow for the option work from home.  Generally a less-than-1,000-square-foot apartment here with two bedrooms does not allow for this.  So, we thought we'd get a 3 bedroom and turn the third bedroom into an office. The funny thing to me was that once we increased to 3 bedrooms there was not even the need to do this as suddently the apartments (with very few exceptions) jumped 1,000 square feet and there were many options for where to put a comfortable home workspace.  Just one example of one lack of ""happy medium" here.  Happy medium, by the way, is what we gringoes are used to.  Happy medium is almost everyone, back at home.

So now we are getting a 3 bedroom apartment which will have two guestrooms (because there is a long hallway area which will make a fantastic workspace for me), plus good sized quarters in case we had an empregada (live-in maid)... 200 square meters (it's bigger than the townhouse we have back home).  We were looking for simplicity!

Much like everything else in Rio, the city of extremes, it's all or nothing, baby!

Buying furniture is much the same...

And as a sidenote:

We came, planning to stay for two years, foreigners in Brazil with seven suitcases, not exactly a house full of furniture (with not so much as a can opener, my new favorite line...), embracing the idea of living a simple life in a rented furnished apartment, and not accumulating many more possessions during this period in our life with the exception of any art we fell in love with. Because stuff is evil and  then you have to maintain stuff and clean stuff and store stuff and move stuff and sell stuff. Stuff ties you down.  So we thought we'd have no "stuff"... Wrong.

Comments

[M :)]

It's funny, the space was not a problem for us in Sao Paulo, but the whole "furnished" thing really throws you for a loop, huh? Just wait until you get back in the States and run into some furnished apt. advertisement and think "What's wrong with this? What's all this stuff in this apartment?" Ha!