Alberto Silva da Cruz, a 28-year-old security guard, and his wife Genilsa, a 32-year-old cleaner, have just joined a queue about 200 metres long outside an annual housing fair held by Caixa Econômica Federal, Brazil’s government-owned savings and mortgage bank.

It is not yet 9am, more than an hour before opening time, by which point the queue will double in size as more couples and young families line up for the chance to buy their first homes under a new government incentive scheme called Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My Home, My Life) that will pour R$60bn ($31bn, €22bn, £19bn) into Brazil’s housing market.