There are many options for making your money or savings grow nowadays, and simply leaving your hard earned money in the bank isn’t one of them. Leaving your money in a bank may be a safe bet but unless you’re willing or even able to leaving hundreds of thousands of pounds simply sitting there you are not going to make much money at all especially with the interest rates being at an all time low.

Banks may be a safe option but there are many other options available that are extremely safe, secure and above all ethical. The safest investment choice is still property as even if property prices fall for a period they are always guaranteed to improve in subsequent years, but buying property as an investment is particularly costly and you may need to wait a long time before you see any substantial returns on your money, there is however a better and quicker way to make money from property and real estate investment by investing with an overseas property developer, through programme’s such as affordable government housing. The most profitable and best known affordable housing programme is Minha Casa Minha Vida Brazil which is the social housing programme currently running in Brazil. The programme is backed by both the Brazilian government and the Brazilian federal bank and is already in its third successful year and set to run for at least five more years in an effort to reduce the housing deficit in the country.

Investing in the programme is simple, you invest through a developer who is building housing for the programme, the developer uses your funds to build one or more social housing units (depending on the amount you wish to invest) and once built and sold onto a waiting family you get back your original investment plus profit. The beauty of the programme is that you can invest in your own county as there are a number of European developers involved and actively building over in Brazil, this means you are protected by your countries own laws. Also, you usually only need to wait between eight and twelve months to see a return. The programme works so well because the Brazilian federal bank is giving qualifying families 100% mortgages and there are thousands of family on the waiting list who are pre-qualified. But be careful, whilst there are a number of European developers actively building Minha Casa Minha Vida homes there are also a number of boiler room scams claiming to be part of the programme.

The sale price on Minha Casa Minha Vida homes is set by the Brazilian government and whilst the return on investment does fluctuate slightly from developer to developer it is usually between 15% and 25%, with an investment in single unit usually setting you back between £20,000 and £25,000 pounds sterling, so companies who are offering you extremely high returns should be avoided as it usually means a scam, remember if it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is. Also this investment is structured so that you are better investing direct with a developer and not an investment company, as whilst an investment company may very well invest your funds in the Minha Casa Minha Vida programme it is not guaranteed and you don’t benefit from the same protection as you would if you where to invest through an actual developer who is officially involved in the programme.

In summary, you can still make good, short term investments in property and anyone wishing to invest in Brazil through the Minha Casa Minha Vida social housing programme should make a great return with twelve months.