020SHC

Bom Dia!
I am working with a real estate agent in advance of a house hunting visit next month. I am trying to eliminate properties we know we are not interested in by looking at them on line. In North America we can do that right in the Real Estate Portal - we see the exact location of the house and every house for sale is listed. Of course I will see pictures, but I will also be able to see if the house is next to a factory or on a cliff without actually traveling there.

I am trying to do the same thing for Portugal and what I have found over the months is that while there are a coupe of real estate portals, they are A) Buggy and unusable (Hello Meravista) or B) do not contain all listings.

So, I've asked the agent to send me the locations of the houses so we could look in Google Earth She tells me that is against the law in portugal - she can't tell me where the house is until she takes us there. True, or is she just being protective and "guarding" her listings from other agents?

Also, do agents in Portugal have access to all listings or only their own? We seem to be focused on the listings her company has. Should I be casting a wider net and contacting more agents? My experience here is one agent can do it all. Might be different there....

Obrigado!

ouriquejan

I would use as many agents as you can. Remax and Era are the big national one's but there are loads, depending on where you're looking.

And I think she was telling you a little porkie about not being able to use google earth. When we were looking in the Alentejo, the agent would send us a google map, so we could see around the area.

I take it you are looking at the Algarve?

Shanorme

When we looked for a house, after being dragged around and shown completely unsuitable places (despite our list of requirements - not long but very clear), we insisted on map location, floor plan and lots of photos. This whittled things down and we found what we wanted quite easily.

Ajmandon

Don't assume things work the same way as in Nth America ....... They don't even for for Brits coming to Pt ..... and many still fall foul. Never forget the agent works for the Vendor NOT the buyer, I suggest you don't rely on a single agency unless you engage directly someone to assist your search (unusual here) . There are a number of websites or portals as you mention. Have you tried Zoopla? I have not seen any that will give an exact location. Not sure whether it is a legal thing, possibly agents protecting their listings from being poached by other agents or the risk of showing where the local thieves can find a payday!

mfesharne

It's not illegal for them to give you the info you ask but it is bad business practice & although there are many good, ethical & honest estate agents there are also many decidedly flaky ones out there as well so don't ever trust or believe an agent or seller but rather check & double check with appropriate planning depts etc & always but always use a lawyer of your own choosing & NEVER a lawyer recommended by the agent or seller.

I see someone mentioned Remax who are actually a franchise & FWIW, most of them at least have a dodgy reputation to say the very least.

barlaventoexpert

We completed our our house purchase north of Lisbon last August after a 9 month search after selling our house in the Algarve,.

These are my observations. (I should point out that both my wife and I read, speak & write Portuguese pretty fluently)

1) There are no exams or certifications required to be a real estate agent under Portuguese Law.
2) There is no law to my (extensive) knowledge preventing real estate agents from disclosing locations to properties. As I was told by one of the few agents I came to respect, agents do not want disclose locations, primarily for commercial secrecy purposes. However, with knowledge of the, Google Maps and site visits, it is not impossible to often locate the properties.
3) We saw +-90 properties during our search. Most listings were misleading. In one case, once I'd finally got hold of the caderneta predial, it turned out the registered legal plot size was totally different from the actual plot size AND there was an access track running alongside the property to the house behind BUT was part of the property & we would have been responsible for even there was no access to it. The agent said "Well, that's how we used to do things here in Portugal". After tearing him of a strip about various recent changes in Portuguese Law on this matter, he never heard from us again.
4) In my extensive experience, practically none of the agents we had contact with had any demonstrable knowledge of the structures of properties. The number of properties we found online that looked good in the photos and then turned out to be full of damp, have other structural problems etc., was immense.
We were taken to see houses that with 90 seconds of arriving we could see were full of such problems. We walked away. Many agents often didn't know where the properties were located on arriving in the area. In one case, I had pull out a Portuguese Army 1:25000 map of the area & guide the agent to the village in question.
5) Documents - whenever we we even the least bit interested in a property, I always asked the agent by email for the following four documents related to the legal status of the property -
a) Planta arquitetural
b) Caderneta predial
c) Certidão permanente
d) Certidão Enérgetica
More often than not, the agents were not able to provided the documents immediately, and then ensued a protracted exchange of emails, complete with excuses like, the dog ate it, to get these, which often were very illuminating on the history of the property in question.
6) As we were estrangeiros, most agents just saw € signs when we first made contact. Once they realised our language capacities and knowledge of the Portuguese real estate market they rapidly became disabused and defensive. We left not a few shaking and seeking counselling.
7) Generally the agents themselves were unable to provide us with any suitable properties on first contact. They refused to listen to or read our specs which we presented in writing. Consequently we spent tens of hours searching the main portuguese language portals, contacting the agent and then asking to view the property.

Amongst other we used email filter searches on the following portals to find possible properties :

- https://www.olx.pt/imoveis/
-
https://www.imovirtual.com
-
https://www.idealista.pt
-
https://casa.sapo.pt
-
https://bpiexpressoimobiliario.pt

In the end, it was on the way back from viewing a property that needed to be bulldozed, that we found the property we bought. Howver, this was a fight to negotiate the sale, principally because the agent would not do as she was asked. At one point, she lost it on the phone with my wife over some issue. I had to take the phone and tell her never ever again to talk to my wife like that. After that we brought in a solicitor to verify, by email, our alterations to the Contrato de Promessa and Éscritura and to handle the notaristion of the same.

I have never trusted ANY real estate agent in any country. They just want to baffle you by science and sell you their own grandmother, given half a chance.

I should point out that many Portuguese buyers have similar frustrations.

If you find a property, do very detailed due diligence and make sure you have a very good Solicitor or Advogado to back you up.

Hope this helps

wellinever

Try the UK website which includes agents that advertise in Portugal
www.rightmove.co.uk

Similar Portuguese/Spanish
www.idealista.pt

As you have been told already, agents in the Algarve are all pretty useless. Dont trust anything they might say. Before doing anything positive towards buying bet yourself a lawyers that speaks GOOD English. While it has been a sellers market over last year, dont listen to them when they say you must be quick, prices are over inflated at the moment.
Go to any house you like on a few different days of the week and at different times, check out neighbours, if possible see if they rent their house out........noise can be a big issue in summer.
Remax/ ERA/ Century21 all pretty hopeless. (all US franchises)

nigel.b

"It's against the law of Portugal" is a phrase that trips easily off the tongue in condominium meetings etc.

I'm reminded of Fawlty Towers, when Basil is trying to deny an apparently unmarried couple a room. "Nothing to do with me - it's the law of England."

020SHC

Barlaventoexpert,
Thanks so much for taking the time to provide such thorough guidance.
Simply just knowing to ask for those four important documents is, I think, gold! That, and from the posts of others, having a good lawyer!

I guess it's the same the world over: An agent has their own best interests at heart!

Andy43

EMR

You have to remember when comparing agents in one country to another that in Portugal the majority are self employed, if lucky on a small retainer and expenses, many relying 100% on their share of the commission, the majority of which goes to the owners of the business, maintaining their offices, web sites Tec.
Agents can spend weeks even months with prospective buyers only to discover they do not have the finance etc.
There are property tourists who take a day out of their holiday to go looking at properties with no intention of buying.

Some agents work with others ,sharing commissions , some will have nothing to do with competitors , relying in their own portfolio which is often the reason for showing unsuitable properties, that is all they have on their books..
Portugal is certainly unlike the UK in almost every aspect of property buying and selling.
The good news is that many of the less reputable have gone, particularly a certain type of British run business model.
The decline in British buyers and the increase in those from an increasing range of different countries has made agents become more professional..

liveaboard

As stated above, many houses listed with multiple agents; technically, a seller is contracted to pay each of them when the property sells, but in reality will only pay commission to who handles the sale.
So to protect their commission, the agent keeps you close; usually they want you to sign a document that states they are showing you this property on this date. They don't want you out there by yourself, meeting the seller and cutting them out of the deal.

Some websites show an ariel map or photo now, and you can usually find the spot on google earth after a while.
When you do veiw a property, it's nice to have a gps with you so you can find it again. I even mapped a couple of properties with a handheld GPS. On one, the [ERA] agent had showed me the wrong marker stones, giving the impression that the 2 properties on either side were part of the one I was being offered.

Andy43

Very fair points, and I'd generally agree about the british business aspect I think, but the whole property system seems like the wild west compared to the UK. UK agents can't use flowery language, and as far as I can tell there's no Ombudsman in Portugal, which in the UK has stopped the more blatant misdescriptions. Say in the UK that it's got double glazing and it hasn't and you'll get sued.

Portugal's nuts. Our property was described as having a self contained 1 bed apartment. No, that's the basement. It is not legally habitable.
Same goes for including the office as a bedroom. It's legally not one, so legally can't be advertised as one, as we have found when it comes to advertise (legally and properly) the house to rent to holidaymakers. Can't include it as a bedroom.
Floor areas were way off : conveniently they mixed up the garden area with the house area. Doh.
Central heating described in the ads is two oil filled rads screwed to the walls. Er, really?
See where I'm going with this? Everything we looked at had similar fantasy land descriptions and photos they'd either done from the car, still in second gear, or used a zoom lens the paparazzi would be proud of. Every one.
To be fair to 'our' agent, who is genuinely a decent bloke, it does look like they inherited the specs and description from a previous agent, but even so it's bad practise. Previous ads photos were literally hilarious. Zoomed in with the sea tilted at 15 degrees. I could have done better photos with a potato.
On the flip side they missed the pre-install for the AC and the whole thing was knackered enough for us to get it at a sensible price. I think...

We took two days out of our holiday to view properties - we had no choice - because some of the agents won't reveal locations the only way to decide if a property is even worth viewing is to be chauffered around in the agents car, using their time and their fuel, to view misdescribed badly photographed 'wrecks' miles from where the advert said they were with the aforementioned 'sea views if stepladders and a mirror'. Some did give us locations. Much easier all round. Others I found as I've said, comparing pool shapes on google earth. Took hours. If we hadn't found 'our' property as quick as we did, I think we would have thrown the towel in eventually.

It's a rubbish out-of-date inefficient business model so I'm not surprised agents struggle. But I have no sympathy at all I'm afraid - put the location on the advert, properly, professionally, and 'maybe' properties can be discounted immediately online, at zero cost and zero time to the agent. Spending half the day driving somebody around, with no due diligence re ability to buy, still not revealing locations or addresses when you're actually stood in front of the property is crazy. Finance - we said we had a budget, and genuinely at that point we had zero clue as to how to pay for it. Nobody asked for proof of funds or genuine intent to buy. No problem, we'll spend hours, a full day in one case, showing you stuff you'll say no to because we wouldn't give you enough up front info to make an informed decision. Nuts. Anyway, good luck OP! This website is ace - tons of info on every thing you can imagine.

020SHC

Spot on Andy43! Thanks for the advice - and encouragement!

barlaventoexpert

A pleasure!

What region are you actually thinking of buying in?