Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 817 posts

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#151

Post by mariojv »

petre wrote: post #137
mariojv wrote: post #113

Related article in the WSJ today about Americans buying European homes due to the favorable exchange rate: https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-the-u-s-dollar-surges-americ... I wonder how this will impact "golden visas." Personally, if moving to Europe, I would be a little concerned about short-term energy insecurity pretty much anywhere except perhaps the Iberian peninsula. I think they'll find a solution, but it'd be h…

The Iberian peninsula imports gas from Algeria. The instant they accept Moroccan control over Western Sahara is the instant the gas stops flowing from Algeria to Spain and Portugal.

Do you think this is likely to happen? I don't know enough about the politics of the region to know if this is something they would do.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#152

Post by djbebs »

TekMol wrote: post #7

I hope Portugal won't tackle it like my country, with a cap on rent and other market distortions. I think that only makes it worse. Fun fact: I - as a single - live in a way too big, luxurious and expensive apartment because of this. I rented it, when I was still working for the man and was making a killing. Now I live a much more modest 4-hour-workweek life. It would be better for me to move to an apartment half the…

Youll be happy to learn that every rental property in portugal is under rent control!

Some have been unable to raise rents since the 1910s!

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#153

Post by tejohnso »

As long as governments continue to allow housing to be treated primarily as an asset, then housing is going to be subject to asset inflation.

The investor class inflates the value of the assets, meanwhile the working class are just struggling for a place to live.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#154

Post by rcarmo »

prmoustache wrote: post #91

First the linked article would do with a bit of proofreading, it is painful at this point. The market is mostly driven by portuguese government offering low taxes to people retiring in the country. This won't be sustainable in the long run as all those people retiring now likely got less kids than the previous gen and will gonna die soon. This is a bubble that will pop in the next 20years when the amount of people dy…

Actually, the market is being driven by wealthy real estate owners who don’t want to do anything but sit back and rake in the profits. The government has been sponsoring visas to get investment in to diversify our industry and economics, but the people coming here to work are not really the ones buying luxury flats.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#155

Post by rcarmo »

jseliger wrote: post #115
jonathanstrange wrote: post #97

Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city. Luckily, we have an older contract that cannot be changed as easily as newer ones. I'm not thrilled by the possibility that our landlord might cancel it some day, however, e.g. for relatives to move in. Rents in t…

We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city Portugal should build more housing, which is a simple, effective solution if the rent is too damn high: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren... . The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like.

Nope. Zoning and licensing is in the hands of politicians and construction lobbies vying for the best places to build high-value housing, which is where they get the most return.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#156

Post by tumetab1 »

To bring some facts regarding the housing market:

The evolution of new housing construction over the last years https://www.pordata.pt/en/Portugal/Completed+dwellings+in+ne...

The number of conventional family houses in Portugal https://www.pordata.pt/en/Portugal/Conventional+family+housi...

My opinions: The housing market has been stagnant since 2010 while at the same time interest rates have been low. The population might not have risen a lot since 2010 but the usual trends of moving to city centers, people leaving their parents house (which keep the same house), people wanting new/bigger houses than their parents are still pressures present.

This means there's a big pressure in demand for housing which is not being met by supply which increases the prices. My speculation is that foreign investment has a very low impact in the housing prices, but it's just my speculation. Even if it's a considerable impact, the fix is always to increase supply of houses so that prices drop and we also get foreign investment.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#157

Post by kblev »

humanwhosits wrote: post #142

Why does anyone let non-resident people buy residential housing?

Banning international sales is a politically damaging move because it would crash the market value of existing housing, affecting those residents who own one (or more), particularly if they're on a mortgage. It also reduces the tax income from properties and propert sales. Banks probably wouldn't be too happy either that the security on the loans no longer cover the outstanding balance.

Things will probably shift when the proportion of renters significantly outnumber the home owners.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#158

Post by ttymck »

paxys wrote: post #52
mtw wrote: post #34

This is not just Portugal. I see similar sentiment in Canada where young professionals in Vancouver or Toronto complain they can't buy their first home and Vancouver has been "sold out" to foreigners. Similar sentiment in Australian major cities as well.

I can't think of any major urban area in the world and any time period in history where "housing is too expensive" hasn't been the popular sentiment.

This is interesting, because (at least in America) the current rhetoric is that housing was laughably affordable up until the 70s(?).

Now, even in suburbs, housing is far more expensive than most wage earners could expect to afford.

Maybe we are thinking of two different sides of the same coin, but I would genuinely be interested in reading articles from the ~mid-century describing what you suggest.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#159

Post by notch656a »

speakfreely wrote: post #147
notch656a wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore's public housing is propped up by the fact that they have a huge proportion of their population that are totally ineligible for it, but pay the taxes to support it. I think something like only 60% of Singapore has the citizenship or correct criteria of permanent residency to obtain public housing. If the US can put 40% of its working populace into some lower-rights having class, like strip their citizenship…

> If the US can put 40% of its working populace into some lower-rights having class, like strip their citizenship, we would have a comparable public housing tax base. The US is already working on this, albeit unintentionally. Undocumented immigrants were at 3.3% of the population in 2016 and the numbers have absolutely exploded since the beginning of the Biden administration, with 2 million apprehensions so far for i…

Undocumented immigrants tend to be an overall good for the citizen economy since we can exploit them, charge them sales tax etc, and then not offer them public services in return. Hopefully the cheap construction labor will improve the housing situation in the US.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#160

Post by joshlemer »

polotics wrote: post #23
zozbot234 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really unsustainable - Switzerland and other wealthy microstates show us the long-term outcome, which is quite desirable. In fact, the "ordinary people" will eventually benefit the most, since their wages will grow to match the prevalent cost of living. Transition can of course be difficult.

Switzerland does not qualify as a microstate at all. You're looking at a population that would fill Los Angeles, twice over... The one thing that is sure is public transportation is night and day, and this helps a lot fight the mad-commute effect for non-millionaires.

Not twice over, Swiss population is 8-9 million. 10 million live in LA.
Post reply on HN