Housing microfinance in Brazil: an exploratory study

• Autor(a) principal: Zins, Elena
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10438/30107
• topic: Low-income populations; Financial inclusion; Housing microfinance; Housing deficit; Inclusão financeira; Microfinanças habitacionais; Déficit habitacional; Populações de baixa renda; Administração de empresas; Finanças - Aspectos sociais; Microfinanças; Habitação - Brasil - Aspectos sociais

The housing deficit and lack of access to credit, notably for the low-income populations, are striking problems in emerging countries, especially in Brazil. The fiscal pressure on public housing programs is increasing, what suggests new solutions must be implemented to alleviate this problem. Housing microfinance is an embryonic but promising market-based practice that could at least partly meet the vast demand for housing finance among low-income populations in Brazil. In this context, this thesis aims at exploring the challenges of housing microfinance expansion in the specific context of Brazil. The methodological approach of this study was to collect both qualitative data. The interviews combined with the secondary data enabled us to provide an overview of the current housing microfinance initiatives in the country, of the market gap that could be filled, of challenges impacting its development as well as expected future development in the market. The results indicate that despite the existence of a market gap that could be filled by housing microfinance and some small-scale success examples of the practice in the country, there is a conjunction of politic, socio-economic and regulatory factors hindering the development of housing microfinance. Overall, experts do not believe there will be an expansion of housing microfinance in Brazil, at least in the near future. The paper ends by outlining key avenues for future research.