campos

Interesting, predictable, depressing article
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/luxury-homes-short-lets-and-shacks-inside-lisbons-housing-crisis

nb888

It is all relative. Not sure what new insight the article is trying to share other than picking on the usual low hanging fruit such as the golden visa and holiday lets and then regaling us with "real life" stories of people who have been impacted by this in order to maximise the emotional angle. The piece about a minimum wage no longer being sufficient to rent a property in Lisbon made me laugh, I can't image how many decades ago a minimum wage would have stopped being sufficient to afford to live in the majority of capital cities in Europe. I would guess outside of a few key areas that significantly skew the numbers the impact of price rises will have been much more modest, who would have known. Relatively speaking Portugal remains one of the cheapest countries in Europe for housing whether you are renting or buying, for a bit of context you are welcome to spend some time in the UK which has been a basket case for everything housing related since around 2001.

campos

ill pass on this.
looks like Lisbon's gentrification and all its effects is inevitable. Slightly surprised at the low % of social housing though. And the heretofore minimum residence requirements for gold visas.

SgtTroy

At the same time, there are numerous towns and villages further inland, which are underpopulated and where there is more than enough vacant housing. And work for that matter.

Moses2013

That Portugal is one of the cheapest countries in Europe for housing seems pretty far-fetched. When we see ruins and land that might look cheap, it's worth nothing to the locals if they don't have the money to make it habitable. Yes, people on a minimum wage in other capital cities across Northern Europe struggle, they have more choices and more benefits though. An unemployed couple here can still price out a local Portuguese couple on a minimum wage.

Marymaccy

That's presumably why the Golden Visa is now only applicable to properties inland.,,,which seems the correct move. Shows what a success Portugal has made of attracting foreigners and their money....lured by the climate and the cheap cost of living. There's always downside to this though and the poor and vulnerable will always come off worse.