nb888

Hi there

I wonder if anyone can provide a bit more insight as to what house prices (and demand) in rural Portugal are doing? In particular I am interested in buying in a few years a small farm / finca with a few hectares in the area near Coimbra / Castelo Branco. In the UK the price of such types of property has risen by a phenomenal rate in the last couple of years due to the increase in working from home, wanting more space, the desire to live "off grid" and good luck if you can even find anywhere as it all goes to sealed bids 50% above the asking price etc... but I am not really sure whether the same pattern exists in the areas mentioned above.

I have been doing considerable research over the last few months looking at idealista and other similar sites, new listings and trying to get my head around what prices things are coming on at and how long they are on for, but am struggling to get a decent picture of what is happening as prices seem to be all over the place..

I know that historically the kind of place (eg off grid, down a 1 km track, no neighbours, not near any civilisation) we would be looking at would have had very little demand, but nowadays, who knows, since it seems to have become the fashion to go to the Castelo Branco area and create an "off grid lifestyle" I would guess the demand has gone up. Whether this is a short term thing or part of a longer trend and what effect this has on prices I am not sure.

If anyone is reasonably local and could share any insight on the property market that would be really helpful.

riv

No one can be absolutely sure what will happen to prices in a couple of years.

However, my best estimate is that they will increase MASSively over and above the general rate of inflation.

Not only do all the factors you mention above apply, increasing the demand factor, but also the Government has a mad policy of positively encouraging well off foreigners to come to Portugal and buy expensive properties. This itself will push up prices.

In addition there are many many ( soon probably to be all ) estate agents in the previously remote rural areas who have taken to Youtube to advertise their properties for sale, with a view to tapping the expat purchasers.
In the past these latter would at least have had to make a trip to Portugal and look around.......now they can do the initial scouting online.

All of the above suggests to me that the previously comparatively cheapo small holdings / even ruins to reconstruct will get massively more expensive, to accommodate the bank balances of non Portuguese buyers.

If you are sure you want to make the move then, albeit there are no certainties in life, I would get a move on with your purchase.

Moses2013

This might answer some questions: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news...rvaluing/63829
Nothing is ever guaranteed and while it might seem that off grid is now more popular, anything can make your property decrease in value. You just need one wildfire to happen and the value drops, even wind turbines can make a place undesirable for buyers (you might not have a problem with it). Droughts or floods can make the land worthless, so again something nobody knows.

santaanita

the portuguese property market in my opinion bears no resembalance to the uk in most cases a property is only worth what someone is prepared to pay,so some stay on the market for years,also imop expat estate agents gave false hope to some portuguese by telling them that their property is worth more than it was.but there are bargens i know of a off grid propety with stunning views with seven acres going for around the 60k mark.and its habital,there is a lot out there,so you need to do a lot of leg work,not just internet.

Alan PT

It's possible Castelo Branco might become the "new Tomar", lifted by a local concentration of immigrants, but that still leaves a lot of rural Portugal, where the Portuguese mostly still don't want to live. A useful guide might be to look at the information from the 2021 Census on population growth/falls https://censos.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?...SOS21&xlang=pt

A lot of Portuguese do retain a second (inherited) "family house" in a rural area for holidays, so the population falls don't lead to quite as much abandoned property as you might imagine, but still, it's hard to imagine it suddenly all rocketing in price, outside of very localised hotspots

Rambling archer

Another proviso is that even off-grid (and for that you may have to be rather more than 1 km up a gravel track) need planning permissions, and planning for rural, ie farms with agricultural intent of use, as opposed to urban (in an accepted area for living-in-houses) so do some detailed research if you can with the Camara in your proposed area as to what is allowed/encouraged and what is not. For farming purposes, you need to know in advance all about your water sources, and then there is drainage, septic tank permit, drilling of wells permits, how drinking water is done? Solar electric is not cheap to set up in PT ... And if you are buying a ruin and need to live in a temporary shelter (caravan or camper for instance) you may well need permission for that too! Consider also, they have snow in the Castelo Branco area at the moment and Coimbra area is quite desirable and fashionable so more expensive perhaps?

Be very careful about setting up in eucalyptus forest areas - look dreadful when the 7-10 yearly cut down happens and massive fire risk in between...

macliam

Property has never been "cheap" in Portugal, when set against other parts of Europe - and the planning laws, etc. work against redevelopments, DIY is more niche than in the UK and less effective, since many aspects of rebuilding require "licensed" operators to sign off work completed before the building can be legalised. As has been said, Portuguese rules often seem to work against any gradual improvements or changes of technology. One couple I know of in the Alentejo bought a property without power and had to pay over €7000 just to get connected to the grid!

Then the Portuguese domestic market is VERY different to the UK, if you ignore the expat bubble. There are many factors for this, the Portuguese (and I generalize) prefer new to old - so there is limited pressure on older properties from the domestic market; Then, apart from the magnet of the Algarve, those looking for a second home have a tendency to look to "a terra", the area where they (or their parents came from) which has a "shotgun" effect; Then, there are aspirational properties - montes in the Alentejo, etc. So whatever happens to the domestic property market, it may not impact of foreign buyers overmuch.

However, one thing that has undoubtedly happened of late is a change in the profile of the foreigners looking to buy into the Portuguese market. The old town in Olhao now has a very large percentage of French ownership and many Italians looking to take advantage of Portuguese fiscal rules. Properties around me, vacated by long-term Brit residents post-Brexit, have been snapped up by Dutch and German buyers - and the Irish economic recovery has seen a vast increase in the number of properties owned by residents of the Republic. If the immediate impact of Brexit proves temporary, then British purchasers may return to higher levels - and we still see a lot of interest from Brits, although many have still not come to terms with the restrictions that being residents of a third-party country have placed on them.

So, all in all, it's difficult to see how fast the market will change over the next few years - there are too many factors at play. However, given the huge increase of visitors to Lisbon and Porto and the change in tourism, I think it's unlikely that Portugal will return to a backwater position within the European property market.

atlasthemonk

Very difficult to asses the market online as 1 often the buyers tell the agent what they want for the property (usually very unrealistic) 2 the pictures may be off the house 20 years ago when they bought it and the back wall has now collapsed 3 houses that were sold 1 years ago are still being advertised 4 the map location on the website can be miles out 5 many alterations (extensions, bigger windows etc) to the houses have not been with planning and are illegal . 6 some houses dont even have habitation licenses 7 quick plasterboard over the mess by builders for a quick ruin to sale etc etc etc. You need to be here to see but to answer your question, house prices have risen over the last 2 years although the more upland areas in your search may still have good value properties for sale.