The window almost no one sees: entering as a partner via SCP
There is a moment in the real estate market when almost no one is paying attention. The land has been acquired, the project has been designed, and the developer needs capital to structure the construction — but the official launch has not yet taken place. It is in this window, well before the showcase stage, that one of the sector’s most profitable phases is concentrated.
This is where the SCP — the Sociedade em Conta de Participação — comes in.
Without getting into the technical details, the SCP is a vehicle that allows the investor to enter the development as a participating partner before the project formally exists as a retail product. They do not buy an apartment: they acquire an economic stake in the business, with risk limited to the capital contributed. When the project is regularized, the return may come in cash or in units — and the capital gain tends to be substantially greater than for those who buy at the official launch.
The key point is not just the discount. It is the asymmetry of access. Those who enter through the SCP access the project at its origin, under conditions the traditional buyer never sees. It is the premium for getting in early.
The second layer: rental profitability by the night in strategic locations
The capital gain on exit is part of the story. The other — and perhaps the most recurring — lies in operating the asset after delivery.
São Paulo has established a structural demand for short-term rentals that does not depend on seasonal tourism. There is a steady flow of executives, patients undergoing medical treatment, families in transit, and professionals on temporary assignments. And this flow is concentrated in specific addresses.
Market numbers show the scale of nightly rental operations in the city. In the expanded downtown area, RevPAR — revenue per available night — is around R$104, with 13% growth; on Paulista Avenue, it reaches R$68 thousand; in Vila Olímpia, the median daily rate supports a median revenue of R$94 thousand, and R$25 million per year.
These figures explain why location is not a detail — it is the thesis. Itaim Bibi and Faria Lima capture high-ticket corporate executives; Moema and Brooklin combine that profile with medical tourism; Pinheiros and Vila Madalena serve cultural and leisure demand; Paulista performs because of its steady traffic flow, with lower risk of prolonged vacancy. Each address requires a different operational strategy, and that reading is what separates a high-performance asset from a property that is simply “on Airbnb.”
The combination I seek to structure is intentional: entry via SCP at the pre-launch stage, in São Paulo locations with proven demand for short-term rentals. The capital gain comes from capturing the origin premium. The recurring yield comes from nightly operation in a market with growing RevPAR and permanent demand. These are two layers of return that complement each other — and that are rarely available to investors who arrive after the development is already in the showcase.
Curation: the filter between opportunity and risk
Investing via SCP does not eliminate risk. It shifts the center of decision-making from “which property to buy” to “with whom and in which project to enter.” The financial health of the primary partner, the governance of the contract, the quality of construction execution, and the consistency of the exit thesis are variables that determine the outcome just as much as the location.
That is why my work is not to present opportunities in series. It is to filter them. To structure scenarios, assess the quality of the primary partner, cross-check the nightly-rental thesis with the actual behavior of each micro-region in São Paulo, and only then bring the investor a path that makes sense for their profile.
The real estate market offers solid opportunities — but they are not distributed democratically. They are concentrated among those who have access to the project’s origin and the intelligence to read the location beyond the obvious. That is exactly where I work!
Pietra Monaro is an executive with more than 25 years of experience in the real estate, financial, and telecommunications sectors, with an MBA in Finance from IBMEC and an MBA in Business Management from FIA/USP. She works in the curation of real estate-backed investments, focusing on SCP structures and short-term rental profitability theses in São Paulo.