When you had to choose between living in a apartment of the family in Gardens or buy a new one from Vila Mariana To be close to her workplace, embryologist Mariana Moraes Piccolomini had no doubts and chose to buy a property in Vila Mariana. The reason? The high price of the condominium and the lack of leisure areas. With the aging of properties in the region, the price of condominium It costs twice as much as the rates charged for newer ones.
“We even visited other huge, well-priced apartments in Jardins. But the price of the condominium was absurd and there was nothing, not even a gym. The parking spaces were also very bad. There are many apartments for rent in Jardins and nothing fit what we were looking for”, she says. The price of a condominium in a family building where the embryologist considered living, for example, is R$5,700.
The apartment where Mariana lives today was launched a few years ago and has common areas with leisure options, such as a gym and swimming pool, as well as a charger for electric cars. Both she and her husband use electric cars. The Jardins property belonging to Mariana’s family has been without residents since 2013 due to the difficulty of renting or selling the apartment, which is 240 m².
Mariana Moraes Piccolomini gave up on the idea of living in a property in the Jardins region because of the value of the condominium and lack of infrastructure Photograph: DANIEL TEIXEIRA
For properties like this, the master plan for the capital of São Paulo does not have strategies for revitalizing old residential buildings, leaving improvement costs entirely up to the condominium owners. The retrofit efforts are associated with the city center, which is expected to receive a total of R$1.1 billion in benefits to convert commercial buildings into residential ones.
On the Zap platform, the average price of 70 advertised condominiums with sizes between 100 m² and 300 m² in the Jardins region is R$4,218. The condominium cost problem also affects projects in the Pinheiros neighborhood, where the average fee for properties of the same size is R$3,914.
Empty properties in Jardins
1 / 4Empty properties in Jardins
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years Photo: Lucas Agrela/Estadão Conteúdo
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years Photo: Lucas Agrela/Estadão Conteúdo
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years Photo: Lucas Agrela/Estadão Conteúdo
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years
Apartment in Jardins has been empty for more than ten years Photo: Lucas Agrela/Estadão Conteúdo
In both neighborhoods, most condominiums do not have or have limited leisure options in common areas, which raises concerns regarding new developments built in the city that already bring the concept of “club condominium”. For 2024 alone, a mapping by Lello shows that 818 projects will be delivered, with a total of 150 thousand apartments, in São Paulo, almost double the number of 2023.
According to a study by Brain, the intention to purchase property in Brazil in the first quarter of this year is at its highest level since May 2021, with 41% of the 1,400 respondents saying they intend to buy a house within two years. Of this share, in the capitals, 56% want apartments.
Mariana condominium has modern common areas and a charging point for electric cars Photograph: DANIEL TEIXEIRA
According to Felipe Miguez, residential development leader at Tellus, old condominiums are the cheapest in the regions because leisure items are below the market, with high condominium costs. The square meter of a new building, he says, ends up being twice the price of one built 30 or 40 years ago.
“The buildings in the neighborhood are getting older and need to be renovated, the plans are becoming outdated. The retrofit thesis has not yet arrived in Jardins, but it tends to consolidate”, says Miguez. According to him, the Jardins region is the one with the greatest disparity between a new and an old one. “The difference can be 50% less per square meter because of this.” On the other hand, a new condominium is cheaper compared to an old one and people pay a lot of attention to this.
The marketing director of Lello Condomínios, Angelica Arbex, says that the condominium costs are made up of labor (50%), service contracts (20%), water and energy expenses (10%) and reserve fund ( 5%). For her, condominium managers are responsible both for planning in relation to improvement works and for convincing condominium owners about the investment to maintain or increase the value of their properties.
“The key to differentiation is to have a property manager who is a context manager, who understands the place, the competition from new developments on the street and is able to manage things that keep the property up to date. The property managers can no longer look at the condominium solely for the purpose of complying with the law, paying the bills, but thinking about how to transform the property into a desired asset”, says Angelica.
There is no such problem (aging of properties). They are different ventures. The apartment that does not have a condominium club has a public one. The old buildings are not abandoned. The used car market is quite strong in São Paulo. It’s rare to find an outdated building, and where we see this is in the city center. It’s another concept of development, there are buildings for different audiences
Ely Wertheim, executive president of Secovi-SP
According to a survey carried out by the real estate platform Loft with data from the first two months of 2024, the price of condominiums per square meter in the Jardins region is R$14.47 for apartments measuring more than 125 m². And that number is rising. In Jardim Paulista, the rate rose 7.57% in the last 12 months; in Jardim América, 7.53%; and in Jardim Europa the value was maintained.
Loft’s data manager, Fábio Takahashi, says that the price of the condominium, as it is a fixed cost, is one of the three most important items when deciding on choosing a property to live in.
According to Loft’s most recent analysis, carried out in 2022, 66.7% of properties advertised for sale in Jardim Paulista had been built in 1970 or earlier, with three in ten having a swimming pool and gym.
In Takahashi’s view, properties in upscale regions, such as properties in Jardins, tend to be attractive to consumers due to what the neighborhood offers. “It’s a great location, with easy access to different areas of the city. What’s around the Gardens, other areas of the city don’t have. Therefore, there is space to have larger structures within the condominiums.”
The executive president of Secovi-SP, Ely Wertheim, denies that the aging of projects in the Jardins region is a reality. For him, most of the buildings are preserved.
“There is no such problem. They are different ventures. The apartment that does not have a condominium club has a public one. The old buildings are not abandoned. The used car market is quite strong in São Paulo. It’s rare to find an outdated building, and where we see this is in the city center. It’s another conception of development, there are buildings for different audiences”, says Wertheim.
“There is a public that does not want a condominium club, just a gym, swimming pool and party room. The public can have this on the street, in a gym or club. Being 50 years old does not mean that the building is deteriorated. The buildings are preserved.”
Asked about retrofit incentive projects in the capital, especially in the Jardins region, São Paulo City Hall reported that it encourages retrofit projects for old buildings throughout the city and that it recently modernized legislation.
“To guarantee incentives for the modernization of buildings built before 1992, the City Hall improved with the Partial Revision of the Zoning Law (Law 18,081/2024) what was already provided for in the Works Code (Law 16,642/17), allowing the expansion of built area of these buildings by up to 20% in relation to the existing built area”, he said in a note. “This surplus is considered a non-computable area by the municipality, which means that the entrepreneur does not pay an onerous grant (financial contribution paid to the Municipality for the interested party to build above the construction limits) about this addition to the project.”
Regarding the central region of the city, the city hall highlighted that it offers tax benefits for building renovations through the Requalifica Centro program. “The program targets buildings built before September 23, 1992 and located within an estimated perimeter of 6.4 km² in the central region,” he informed.
Hidden costs
The coordinator of FGV’s real estate business course, Alberto Ajzental, states that the aging of real estate projects generates an increase in maintenance costs. “A building has what is called a useful life. It ages and lasts between 50 and 100 years. Within this, there are more durable subsystems, such as the reinforced concrete structure that lasts 100 years, and more sensitive subsystems, which last less, such as those that have moving parts, gates and elevators,” he says.
Ajzental highlights that old high-end condominiums had few apartments, like one per floor. This leads to a smaller base of condominium owners to share the general costs of the building, increasing the condominium price paid by residents. He also remembers that all real estate projects are subject to aging and condominiums that have many common areas tend to have more maintenance costs over the years.
“In 50 years’ time, the ‘club condominium’, as the market calls it, will have many more problems than it has today in the old ones. A few years ago, all marketing for new condominiums was based on common areas, which had up to 150 leisure items. This has been changing. Especially because, over time, these items will have costs and condominium owners may even need to reduce these structures to control the price of the condominium”, says Ajzental.
Tags: Condominium prices lack leisure areas reduce attractiveness buildings Jardins
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