Fluctuating currency

I first moved to Rio in Oct '94 since my wife is Brazilian and we wanted to spend more time with my newborn son. We arrived there when the "plano real" (currency) was first installed and was one to one with the dollar. As time went by, the real started to fall and by the time the "Asian economic crisis" hit in 1997, the real was 1.8 to the dollar. We left in December and watched from the U.S. as it continued to deteriorate. By the time 2001 rolled around, the real was 3 to 1 with the dollar and then Sept 11 hit.
We decided right then that we were going back to Rio, bad or good, since almost everyone in the world had lost perspective and our priorities had changed from material to emotional. We arrived in Rio in Aug of 2002 and the real was already 3.5 to the dollar. We saw it go down, down, down and hit 3.99 but not 4. The government was buying dollars to prop up the real. The Iraq war started in 2003 and the dollar began it's tumble. The election of Lula (Brazil's president) helped build hope and investors started believing that Brazil was a formidable partner, abeit emerging.
As the dollar declined, the violence in Rio rose, the favelas grew and the tourism business took a hit. The gringo dollars became scarcer and the operators slashed prices to stay in business. I saw people grow more savvy (on both sides - tourist and owners) and saw my commision diminish to half. I could no longer justify trips to the airport to pick up clients, nor free cell phones.
We saw the dollar drop as low as 1.50 and people were complaining that it just wasn't worth it anymore, especially when Mexico or the Bahamas was so close and so cheap. Still, it is hard to match the magic of Rio de Janeiro, or Brazil. Now, as the economic situation in the U.S. grows worse, the dollar for some strange reason has begun to rise again. Economics I do not understand.

Apartments for rent in Rio de Janeiro

I have rented apartments in Rio de Janeiro for the last 7 years. I started back in 2001 when I was living in Seattle, Wa. My mother in law, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, had a couple of apartments sitting idle and I decided to put one of them on Ebay for a one week rent. I rented it out a couple of times using this method and soon realized that I should create a website and place them online. I started getting more and more traffic and requests and soon realized I should make a business out of it.

We moved to Rio de Janeiro in August of 2002 and I officially went into the business of renting apartments. I was one of a handful of rental agencies back then that catered to vacation travelers and businessmen. I started out with a website called http://www.spectralight.net/ and soon saw myself at the top of google.com. As the years passed, I decided to diversify and bought the domain http://www.apartmentsinrio.com/. While numbering well over 150 apartments, even then, I was still being bombarded with requests from local owners to put their apartments online. Since I found that consolidating servers was more economical (and easier to manage) I obtained a new domain with http://www.riovacationrentals.com/ and now have over 250 apartments registered.

Now I am faced with five or ten times the competition as when I first started, it is easy for just about anyone to create a website and put an apartment online. I guess what singles me out from the rest of the competition is the length of time I have been doing it, and the insight that I have from years of experience of living and working in Rio de Janeiro. I can be contacted for anything concerning Rio, whether it is renting or buying apartments, or knowing which restaurant has the best deal on sushi. I have a passion for all things Rio, let me help you figure out what is worth the time and money