I think in the end it's worse for the simple fact that our income is way lower than the ones in the UK. Like, maybe the avg middle class family in the UK can easily buy a house in Portugal bellow the market value of the UK, while the avg portuguese middle class family can't do that in Portugal, let alone the buying an house in the UK lol.
This is one of those things the fuel the extremes in politics - a lot of people that I know are starting to become outraged that we can't afford houses in our own country.
It's like our solution is to start to look for house in the north of Africa (it's a bad and sad joke), or to go to other EU country (or the UK), work there for a decade +, and return to buy an house in Portugal.
If nothing is done, and a lot of people keep parking money in Portugal housing market (some as imigrants, like your friends or others from UK/richer European countries, or people just buying golden visas through realstate to get a EU passports), then I'm afraid nothing good will come out of this.
A lot of people thought it was the migrant crisis that might start the fire for the for extreme-right in Portugal, I think the end will be hyper inflation and the housing market - all because people just want to live in dignity where they were born, and they're being squeezed out.