Sep
09
Rio de Janeiro’s Bursting Real-Estate Bubble
By-
Rents in Rio’s swankiest areas tumble as vacancies skyrocket
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Flood of projects before 2016 Olympics to add to oversupply
At opposite ends of downtown Rio de Janeiro, projects tied to Donald Trump and Eike Batista — one a billionaire-turned-politician, the other Brazil’s most famous ex-billionaire — have come to represent the city’s real-estate bust.
The 23-story Serrador building, a granite-and-glass art deco tower near Rio’s Santos Dumont airport, has sat empty since Batista’s failed empire of commodities companies abandoned it last year. Four miles away, in the city’s gritty port district, an ambitious office project that Trump lent his name to is still nothing more than a weed-filled lot about a year after construction was slated to begin…