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Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

politico.eu

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Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#161

Post by presentation »

michaelteter wrote: post #110

It’s ridiculous to blame digital nomads. If there is a primary source to blame, it would be Airbnb. This gentrification and tourist problem began well before Lisbon became a DN favorite. Also it’s a global problem as wealth accumulation means individuals and companies can’t find enough places to “safely” put cash. Real estate, especially when it can generate good income, is an obvious choice. Plus, Portugal attracts…

If Airbnb is the problem then just sounds like supply is out of whack with demand. Sounds like they ought to be building more homes and transport infrastructure to cope with the demand. Though based on other comments also sounds like it’s not the most competent local government.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#162

Post by Arnt »

fy20 wrote: post #43
user_named wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats complain about bureaucracy everywhere. A German expat in Sweden will complain about Swedish bureaucracy. A Swedish expat in Germany will complain about German bureaucracy. It does not mean anything. Expats complain about everything.

I'm not sure about Portugal, but a few years ago my wife was studying in Spain on a study abroad program. She is from another EU country, and we'd visited Spain a few times, so figured it would be easy. Pretty much every step of the way we encountered so much more bureaucracy (I am an immigrant to her country) than we could even imagine. She spoke Spanish, but if she didn't it would have been a million times harder.…

You moved to another country and did one single banking transaction there in a month? That seems like something you have to actively try in order to do. Right? Why did you try?

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#163

Post by ornornor »

soco wrote: post #155
ornornor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiss bureaucracy is expensive but it’s swift, easy, and very cordial. I’ve never lived anywhere that was so good on paperwork. Exchange my non EEU drivers license? A week flat and about 100.-. Getting a residence permit? 100.- approx and less than two weeks. Questions about your tax return or filing? An email to the cantonal tax office and you’ll get an (encrypted answer) within a few days. That’s only about the gov…

You mean, private companies are "streamlining their customer service" or whatever the name of the day is. And it's not only in Switzerland, everywhere it's just incredibly hostile, to the point where you feel like smashing some office windows just because.

It feels more like the general attitude is “you should be glad we’re letting you give us your money. Now shut up and go away.” You’ll never get an apology, never get an easy refund because they goofed up. No. You’ll struggle, waste your time, and get nowhere.

But I guess this is an EU thing compared to what I’m used to in Canada and the US.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#164

Post by ajsnigrutin »

avmich wrote: post #35
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would be a lot more long-term rentals available if there was no airbnb (because airbnb is the reason that you were unable to find a long-er term rental in the first place). Limit the rentals to 1 month (or 2) minimum and you have all the bases covered.

How come in so many markets suppliers seek the demand and glad to have it, but in real estate market instead of cheerfully increasing the supply there are complaints, proposal to limit and in general offers to do something unusual where the goal could seemingly be achieved by more housing...

Because the "investors" buy up property and then lobby their (local or national) governments not to allow more housing to be built to artificially inflate the prices.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#165

Post by dzhiurgis »

sofixa wrote: post #103
dzhiurgis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience in NZ - you only start to see how hopeless europe is when you come back. I had 0 interaction with gov clark in nearly a decade in NZ, while in europe any sort of errand would require in face meetings. Even some digital forms would just email the form to a person in ivory tower for validation, who’ll tell you to visit office anyway…

"Europe". Counterpoint, in France the vast majority of bureacratic things can be done fully online. Last time i had to go in person was for a passport/ID card, so there are multiple good reasons (photo, biometric info, confirm your identity) for that. Some of the websites are not great, and sometimes they send you a confirmations by mail, but otherwise a pretty painless experience.

Do you still need 3pieces of paperwork or permits just to buy a car?

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#166

Post by ajsnigrutin »

vineyardmike wrote: post #62
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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 Well obviously "infinite" is not true since there are limited people on earth with mobility to visit Lisbon, and not everyone would want to visit, and not everyone can do it at once... But in good-faith arguments, there is a lot of differe…

Also, there are areas on the edge of lisbon, that could become a new manhattan there.

Look at Belgrade for example... after the war, when the city was "full", the communists decided to build more, took an empty swampy area across the sava river, and started building... A LOT:

before: https://www.4zida.rs/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/novi-be...

After (a tiny part): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Be...

I live in slovenia, and similar projects were built here, and A LOT of them... somehow all the building stopped after we gained independence.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#167

Post by martindbp »

user_named wrote: post #105
louison11 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Portugal is different. To give you perspective: it takes 2-3 years to exchange a foreign driver license (most foreigners I know drive illegally by now), a lot of administrations frequently “lose” applications and ask you to do it again when they have too much backlog (this cost me hundreds of dollars in back and forth, certified documents etc in the past). It’s also very common for administrations to have no one…

Takes 18 months to get permission for your foreign spouse to move to Sweden. It then takes 12-18 months to get into the social system - you register quickly, but for the bureaucracy to actually add you into the system takes that long. So no, you're wrong. Portugal is not different.

That was not our experience 8 years ago, it was much faster.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#168

Post by michaelteter »

presentation wrote: post #161
michaelteter wrote: post #110

It’s ridiculous to blame digital nomads. If there is a primary source to blame, it would be Airbnb. This gentrification and tourist problem began well before Lisbon became a DN favorite. Also it’s a global problem as wealth accumulation means individuals and companies can’t find enough places to “safely” put cash. Real estate, especially when it can generate good income, is an obvious choice. Plus, Portugal attracts…

If Airbnb is the problem then just sounds like supply is out of whack with demand. Sounds like they ought to be building more homes and transport infrastructure to cope with the demand. Though based on other comments also sounds like it’s not the most competent local government.

It's not so simple. For one thing, it's a very old city that is already full of buildings. Unless you want to raze buildings and rebuild (the most extreme form of gentrification, and also the way to ruin the historical charm), there's really not place to build new housing. You have to go quite some distance from the city center to find space. And then you need a lot of new transportation infrastructure to make it attractive/possible to get from the new available housing to the city center.

And just as it is difficult to build more housing in an already full city, upgrading or building new transportation infrastructure is very difficult and costly (and disruptive for years to the people currently living there).

There's really little that can be done to balance things. When "everyone" decides that Lisbon is cool (and it is!), they all want to visit. So naturally any apartment or building owner who can convert from local long term rentals to tourist short term rentals (at many X the price) will just based on the profit potential.

And when property companies realized this, they began buying whatever they could - both as a good long term investment in the real estate itself, and for pretty great tourist income.

Many places in the US and elsewhere in the world have the same problem.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#169

Post by djbebs »

jacquesm wrote: post #159
alzamos wrote: post #16

Currently 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 govern…

The digital nomads are going to soak up a good 3 to 5% of the total housing on a permanent basis , that's a pretty good dent in the reservoir. Tourists predominantly stay in hotels or other short-stay places. Though AirBNB and so on also result in the conversion of some of that available housing into short stay 'hotels' which will put more pressure on that reservoir. Typically in any city the vast bulk of the housing…

There is no lack of space in portugal to build housing in.

The "housing crisis" is 100% a political choice by portuguese voters.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#170

Post by djbebs »

capableweb wrote: post #148
traveler01 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living is not low at all. Don't know where you got that idea from.

Of course it depends on what you compare it to. But compared to its South-Western European sisters, it is quite low. Mainly getting it from living in a bunch of European countries (including Portugal, and others outside of Europe, but not as relevant). Besides Lisbon (and probably Porto nowadays), it's hard to find a place with good weather, good food and low cost of living compared to Portugal. Or maybe you have som…

From personal experience cost of living in portugal is in line with germany.
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