Not advocating for the influx of "crypto bros" and "digital nomads" but to blame the current wave of inflation on them is a bit ridiculous
Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
11–20 of 184 posts
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#12Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be no-problem if cities built more houses (especially large apartment blocks) ... well, and outlaw airbnb. I live in a former socialist country that somehow managed to build A LOT of housing in the 70s and 80s, with shitty equipment, but somehow cannot build anything in the last few decades. And not just the government building stuff... normal people could buy a plot of land, get their friends to help, dig…
>This would be no-problem if cities built more houses "Just build more houses" is not something that scales infinitely. Long commute distances and geography tends to get in the way with stuff like hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. while demand from foreigners and tourists will stay virtually infinite. At which point do you stop building and say your city can't house more people without ruining the charact…
But in this case we are talking about replacing single-story buildings cities with multi-story apartments.
Just about every city has plenty of room to build lots of housing via upzoning.
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As for Airbnb, that’s the same is most touristy cities and it’s not just because of nomads. Cities should be for citizens... tourists belong in hotels.
What if the citizens want to make an extra buck renting their property?
The problem is when housing prices are at an all time high and it's almost impossible to find somewhere to rent, even with money in your pocket, because the landlord decided it's much more profitable to do weekly air-bnbs to tourists.
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be no-problem if cities built more houses (especially large apartment blocks) ... well, and outlaw airbnb. I live in a former socialist country that somehow managed to build A LOT of housing in the 70s and 80s, with shitty equipment, but somehow cannot build anything in the last few decades. And not just the government building stuff... normal people could buy a plot of land, get their friends to help, dig…
>This would be no-problem if cities built more houses "Just build more houses" is not something that scales infinitely. Long commute distances and geography tends to get in the way with stuff like hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. while demand from foreigners and tourists will stay virtually infinite. At which point do you stop building and say your city can't house more people without ruining the charact…
You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now.
We have vast areas here (Ljubljana, slovenia) where you're only allowed to build two-story two apartment buildings and nothing more.. and right next to those buildings are large socialist-time apartment buildings with many apartments. But nope, you're not allowed to build higher there. Even in rural areas, we have a lot of empty land, right next to the road, and nope, not allowed to build there, because people who built their houses now complain and don't want new houses there. They also complain if anyone wants to create any kind of business there, and then they complain that there are no jobs there, and that people have to drive to the capital.
Look at eg. sillicon valley for example... just building 3, 4, 5 story apartment buildings in areas where there are single-family houses would multiply the usable area for apartments by 5 times, making the buildings larger (combining multiple plots) even a lot more, and since the number of apartments goes up, there is much more potential for investors to offer above-market rates for those plots of land where they could build bigger and higher.
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#16Currently living in the Algarve after moving to Lisbon with my partner for her studies years ago.
I know a few non-crypto entrepreneurs who came here for the NHR (non habitual resident scheme - the scheme mentioned in the article which allowed for the 20% tax cap on foreign income).
I can confirm that a lot of them were incredibly frustrated with the bureaucracy they encountered, not just when dealing with the government, but generally in everyday life. Most people have war stories related to accountants, lawyers, banks, telecom companies or landlords. The real kicker was when they realised that the 20% didn’t include social security payments, bringing most of them (those that didn’t pay hefty fees to set up companies in tax havens, and pay themselves exclusively in dividends) to an effective rate that wasn’t that far off what they’d be paying elsewhere. Needless to say the expat churn has been quite high.
Regarding Airbnbs and rising housing prices - I’m no economist but intuitively, I’ve always thought it made more sense to blame the explosive growth in tourism Portugal has had in the last decade or so (6M tourists visiting Lisbon, a city of 500k people) rather than the 10-20k digital nomads. Would be curious to know if anyone has better numbers or studies.
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This would be no-problem if cities built more houses "Just build more houses" is not something that scales infinitely. Long commute distances and geography tends to get in the way with stuff like hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. while demand from foreigners and tourists will stay virtually infinite. At which point do you stop building and say your city can't house more people without ruining the charact…
You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now. We have vast areas here (Ljubljana, slovenia) where you're only allowed to build two-story two apartment buildings and nothing more.. and right next to those buildings are large socialist-time apartment buildings with many apartments. But nope, you're not allowed to build higher there. Even in rural areas, we have a lot of empty land, right next…
>You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now.
How long do you think "a little bit more than you have now" will last until housing stops being sufficient again and you're back to square one?
Cities like Lisbon have virtually infinite demand due to how attractive they are and how many people would like to live thre, so yeah, you would technically need infinite housing to satisfy the never ending demand, unless you take some legislative policies the makes Lisbon less attractive for certain foreigners and tourists wanting to come there.
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if the citizens want to make an extra buck renting their property?
There's a difference between (long-term) renting and airbnb. Just ask the neighbours, who normally don't care about long-term renters and complain a lot about ever-changing tourists and all the issues that brings (from safety to loud parties). You cannot have a factory in the middle of a residential zone, why can you have (what is effectively a single room) hotel?
I lived from 2014 to 2016 in a really cosy flat with a sloped ceiling in downtown Lisbon. I literally moved away from there solely because the unit beneath mine turned into an AirBnb rental and there were constant loud parties all night long pretty much every other day. Not to mention people leaving the building door open, the rapid degradation of the stairwell with all the tourists dragging their suitcases (and the fact that the parties often extended to the stairwell).
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As for Airbnb, that’s the same is most touristy cities and it’s not just because of nomads. Cities should be for citizens... tourists belong in hotels.
What if the citizens want to make an extra buck renting their property?
It's impossible to pay rent in Lisbon while earning median salary as one person (855€ average rent for 1 bedroom apartment vs 1200€ median salary).
At this point, there's no reason for anyone new to go live there.
Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now. We have vast areas here (Ljubljana, slovenia) where you're only allowed to build two-story two apartment buildings and nothing more.. and right next to those buildings are large socialist-time apartment buildings with many apartments. But nope, you're not allowed to build higher there. Even in rural areas, we have a lot of empty land, right next…
>You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now. How long do you think "a little bit more than you have now" will last until housing stops being sufficient again and you're back to square one? Cities like Lisbon have virtually infinite demand due to how attractive they are and how many people would like to live thre, so yeah, you would technically need infinite housing to satisfy the never end…
Tourists belong in hotels not in residential area apartments. Foreigners should not be able to own apartments at all, since it's a limited resource. Otherwise, build until the prices drop to some managable level for normal people.