ricko

I'm about to do a trip to find an apartment for my initial period in Portugal.
I haven't rented in the UK in the last 30 years, so don't know what to expect
to be included in a furnished apartment.
What would I have to bring, and what arrangements would I need to make for the first couple of weeks?

dingg

Rentals for long term are a bit of a nightmare to find IME.
In your shoes book an airbnb short term while looking for something long term airbnb will have everything supplied usually.
Good luck

Ukkram

Forget looking at rentals on websites as the Portuguese landlords do not like to answer if the email is in English plus they are wary of the fact that UK people can just up and duck back without paying.

When we arrived we stayed in hotels and short term rentals for 2 to 3 weeks before finding this apartment through an estate agent. It was mid summer so high season. My mistake as we should have arrived in winter. I must have sent a hundred emails to adverts and received no replies. So the best would be to go to estate agents.

ricko

Thanks for the replies, that's very useful information.
When I get a long term rental (for 3 or 6 months) would a furnished apartment provide most items (excluding bedding) or would I have to do some shopping?

dingg

You 'should' be provided with most things but it can be variable like most things in portugal.

toots sweet

The problem with airbnb and theor like these days is that they charge an horrendous fee for long term rentals. We wanted to spend 3-4 winter months in Portugal and they were asking 800 euros as their "security fee".
We found accomodation and booked the 1st week via airbnb and then negotiated a longer term with the owner. Worked out much cheaper.Saved at least €700 in fees alone.
We have everything we need inc wash machine dishwasher cable TV. Owner is very helpful.If anything is missing it will usually be little things like good bottleopener for the wine .

Ukkram

I was specifically looking for a furnished apartment as we wanted to move around Portugal and perhaps Spain. I found many for long term rental (years not months). A 3 to 6 month contract will not be a contract but an agreement as it is short term. A long term contract is typically 5 years.

SaffyRosie

You can easily get a 3-6 month furnished rental IF you come in the winter season. This is when many holiday lets remain empty.

This is what we did. We got a rental from early November to end of may. During that time we found the house we bought. This is in the Lagos area

We found our winter let fairly easily. I searched on owners direct website ( now called home away?) to find apartments we liked the look of. I then contacted the owners asking if they would be interested in a winter rental. 9 out of 10 replied and of those 6 out of 10 were willing to do a winter let. We had a good choice. This was in 2016.

I recommend starting a hunt for a winter let as early as possibly in the year you wish to.come out; before the owners takes any holiday rentals during that season (winter).

Good luck!

ricko

Is there any problem in having an agreement rather than a contract?
Does it mean you don't have a signed document, and would that make it difficult to register for residency?

I thought that utilities would NOT be included in the rent.
I was expecting to have to take passport and NIF to water/gas/electricity/phone offices.

I wasn't going to stay in a resort area.
I was thinking of starting in central Portugal, but am rethinking that now as it has been difficult to find about residency documents for the town I wanted to move to.

riv

I would have thought that deciding ( at least provisionally ) which town you wish to stay in is more urgent than the practicalities of renting : once you have made that decision ( which town ) you just book into a pensão for a week and from that base make inquiries re rentals ( are you talking about winter 2019 or earlier than that this year ? ).

Once on the spot you can certainly visit Estate Agents but also it can sometimes be worth just asking locals such as the owner of the pensão you stay at : s/he may well know of someone wishing to rent out a place of some description.

Personally I would try to get a place with ALL utilities included : obviously this will be higher rent than if not, but the hassle of trying to sort short term contracts with electricity / water / local council tax is just not worth it.

Last April I rented an out of season two bed flat in a coastal resort ( Manta Rota ) on the Algarve. It cost 850 Euros for one month, including all utilities, incl satellite TV. This was found through an Agent online.

It was nothing exciting but plenty of space and everything worked, even the aircon worked adequately as heating in the evening. It was totally peaceful as out of season ~no one else living on the staircase. Easy to park. I thought it was a reasonable deal.

Somewhere a bit obscure in central, provincial, Portugal, off the tourist track, might not be so easy to find with utilities included. Hence my suggestion that you stay in a pensão for a week whilst making inquiries locally.

ricko

My intention is to rent an apartment for six months, and in that period have a look at different parts of Portugal.
So I want to find somewhere that it is easy to find an apartment, and to go through the bureaucracy of gaining a residence permit, and whatever follows that.

ricko

I too have been looking for a furnished apartment, but find most of them are unfurnished ( and not many of them either).
Did you think you had good service from your estate agent, and if so would you mind saying which one it was?

Ukkram

The only estate agent that went out of it's way for us was https://www.entreportas.pt/destaques...-viana-castelo

ricko

Thanks for the tip.
I had a look at this site, but there was only two apartments to rent for your locale.
Agents have said that it has been very difficult to find somewhere to rent for the last couple of years.
So has Portugal become more like Britain, in that the majority of people prefer to buy a house than to rent?

Ukkram

When we first arrived here we found it strange that there were many more young women here than men. I still remarked about this to my wife saying I would have had a great time here in my youth.
This is no longer the case and I believe many young men have returned to work here taking up rentals.