Ruban Selvanayagam is a full-time property investor / developer / trader with business interests in the UK and Brazil. He has been involved in UK property since 2005 and has built a residential buy-to-let portfolio located in the East Midlands and London. Since 2008 - with a strong desire to travel and diversify his business objectives - he has been making regular trips to Brazil to explore property related opportunities and, in 2009, set up a resource site providing regularly updated objective information to the ever growing number of investors interested in the excellent opportunities available throughout the country: Brazil Real Estate & Land Investment Guide.

In late 2010, Ruban formed a partnership with an experienced real estate development company based in Macaé, Rio de Janeiro that focuses specifically in creating high quality, environmentally friendly homes using a patented and copyrighted construction system: Fez Tá Pronto. As with much of the emerging world witnessing rapid growth, wealth divides remain particularly noticeable in Brazil. Amongst the images of luxury apartment, villa and hotel construction in preparation for the World Cup 2014 and 2016 Olympics - the majority of the country's population still live in sub-standard housing conditions. Fez Tá Pronto's unique ability to build at costs which are over 40% less than what is conventional all whilst using the highest quality of material enables homes to be made truly affordable for the base of the pyramid majority. Previous projects have been approved for mortgage purposes by Brazil's leading home lender Caixa Econômica Federal as well as the Banco Itaú, Banco do Brasil and the Banco Real (now merged with Santander). Due to the massive demand levels for housing in Brazil (estimated at anything up to 30 million units), Fez Tá Pronto are able to work with local governments to ensure that units will be pre-sold even prior to construction - effectively guaranteeing what are very lucrative investor returns.

Whilst projects are initially based in Brazil, the Fez Tá Pronto team's full intention is to expand into countries with similar housing deficit issues including throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. To put into perspective using UN statistics: 3 billion people (40 per cent of the world's population) will need to have social housing and complementary basic urban infrastructure services by 2030. If this population is divided into broad households of 5 people each, the need for new habitation in this period will be approximately 600 million units - or 33.3 million units per year / 91,324 units per day / 3,805 units per hour / 63 units per minute.

This year, Ruban has created a blog focusing on the issue of base of the pyramid housing which which will also be fed through to Property Secrets.

You can download the full PDF 2011 report and ask any of your questions to Ruban on this wonderful affordable housing project by clicking here