The Brazilian real estate market is booming again after fizzling at the end of last year as sales have rebounded in one of the best emerging markets, a New York-based real estate private equity investor said in an interview on Tuesday.

Launched two weeks ago, a 104-unit residential project directed to middle-income families in Sao Paulo is the best example of that, Thomas Shapiro, president of GoldenTree InSite Partners, said at the Reuters Global Real Estate Summit.

We sold every unit in four hours, Shapiro said, adding that the company has recently raised around $500 million to invest there.

Brazil has been out of sight internationally in the past few months, he added. That was good for his company to identify good investment opportunities, as local listed real estate companies were suffering with the stock market debacle.

Very few funds were raised for Brazil because they forgot the 'B' in BRICs, Shapiro said, adding that the bulk of the available money went to India and China.

It was hard to find something with good fundamentals ... that was not outflown with capital, he said.

Shapiro said the fundamentals of the Brazilian economy looked better than expected for the year ahead and that a stimulus package from the government had helped the real estate market heat up, as the upper class in Brazil traditionally prefers to invest in hard assets when crises arrive.

China India