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The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

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

#171

Post by subsubzero »

This sounds like what happened in the SFbay area(south bay/pennisula), I grew up there and it used to be a great place to live, center left politics, lots of families and a diverse set of industries with many middle class opportunities. right around 10-15 years ago things started to change dramatically for the worse, housing and costs everywhere skyrocketed, homeless population exploded, politics veered hard left. Most of my friends from high school(90%) were forced to leave due to rents going from $1k a month to $3k a month for a 1-2 bdrm apts. Those that owned houses also moved as they were fed up with crime and could get a way better house somewhere else. Middle class jobs all disappeared from the area, families also left, the neighborhoods I lived in San Jose (rose garden/willow glen) had barely any kids for my daughter to play with as there were no families anymore, the rose garden neighborhood had 0 kids on the street, the willow glen neighborhood had 1 family w/ kids who moved away during the pandemic.

I was lucky and making really good money in tech but was devastated by how the area I grew up in had turned into a nightmare and everyone I know (even family) leaving the area. I too ended leaving as the cost vs. quality of life didn't make any sense and I couldn't see my family living in a place I didn't even recognize anymore. Most people don't talk about it but there is a huge diaspora of bay area residents due to the stuff mentioned above and it breaks my heart to think we will most likely never return and familiy/friends I expected to spend the rest of my life with all leaving.

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

#172

Post by al_mandi »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #32
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…

Heavily taxing houses that stay empty and limiting short duration rental could be quite effective. The issue is somewhat the same in Paris. It’s very hard to afford living there because non local use properties as an investment and prefer them staying empty than risking them degraded and people who want to rent make more money on Airbnb. It’s fine if you want the city to become Disneyland but very depressing otherwis…

> Heavily taxing houses

Two wrongs don't make a right.

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

#173

Post by huevosabio »

motohagiography wrote: post #29

Some Canadian cities responded to this with a foreign buyers tax, notably in Vancouver. Florida has a method for balancing its "snowbird" population to do with foreign buyers. Personally, I think this is the effect of governments themselves no longer believing in nations and borders or a responsibility for them, and simply importing polarized populations of both very rich and very poor people whose effect in concert…

Just build more. If foreigners want to buy overseas property, then just increase the supply.

Oh, and tax the unimproved value of land and give the proceeds to the Portuguese citizens. This will dampen the effect while supply of housing matches demand.

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

#174

Post by petre »

mariojv wrote: post #151
petre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, it's quite possible. After Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned, the current Algerian government started working against France and the EU. Lots of French investment in Algeria, so they're basically also working against themselves, betting most if not all of their economy on oil and gas. Apart from ocasional territorial disputes, Spain and Morrocco are on okay terms and the current Spanish goverment is supporting the Moroccan plan for the autonomy of Western Sahara, which is close to their holiday islands, the Canarias. This move drew hash criticism and threats from Algeria who's establishment unconditionally supports the Polisario front. They're a nationalist movement working against Spanish colonialism and Moroccan and Mauritanian irredentism. Spain is walking on quite a thin line in Africa. I need not remind you that virtually all of their gas comes from Hassi R'Mel, Algeria.

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

#175

Post by madaxe_again »

andrepd wrote: post #76
madaxe_again wrote: post #17

There’s much truth here, but it isn’t the entire picture. Lisboa and Oporto are hideously overpriced, and it is indeed hard to see how a normal Portuguese earner can afford to live in either. Even Vila Nova de Gaia, which was the “cheap” side of Oporto, is now parlously expensive. This effect has bled along the coast, and many coastal villages now ask €200k for an unmodernised one bedroom house. But… the interior of…

Well the problem is (1) jobs and (2) many people simply don't want to live in a town with 1000 people and nothing to do. (1) Bar agriculture and remote work, there are very few jobs in the interior of the country. I think in this forum we may have a skewed perspective since our sector is by far the one where remote work is most common. But most people simply don't have the option to earn 10x minimum wage from their c…

There’s more work than you might think - there’s a perpetual shortage of white collar professionals here, from doctors to accountants to insurance agents. The ones who are here are perpetually oversubscribed, and are hiring. There’s also an absolute dearth of trades - there is one electrician, two builders, two plumbers, covering a huge area, with a three year waiting list. The younger couples I mentioned who have moved here typically have one working remote, the other starting a business… and then the remote worker stopping that to work on their partner’s business which is suddenly growing out of control. That’s not even considering things like ecotourism, the europa grants available for doing pretty much anything here, and public sector jobs, which they are filling with literally anyone who applies.

There’s also the whole virtuous cycle thing - more people move here, bring more commerce, more demand, secondary and tertiary industries develop.

I hear you on lifestyle, however - this wouldn’t have been for me when I was in my 20’s, but at nearly 40, and finally wanting to start a family, it’s ideal - and many of the younger folks moving here are in the same boat.

That said, there are restaurants, some really good, and transport around here has improved such that Bragança is only 30 minutes from Vimioso now, rather than 1hr+ it was 10 years ago, and it has all the amenities of a secondary city. Oh, and we had an excellent concert a few weeks ago - after the bullfighting. But I agree, it isn’t for everyone - but it’s perhaps for more people than might realise it.

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

#177

Post by rootos »

notch656a wrote: post #159
speakfreely wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Undocumented immigrants have the same access to public services such as public education, medical care at hospitals, access to court systems, police, fire, etc.

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

#178

Post by sanedigital »

andrepd wrote: post #104
somewhereoutth wrote: post #87

5 years resident here (as a Brexit refugee). Central city locations in Lisbon and Porto have exploded in price, but this is due to AirBnB rather than rich expats. Portugal's tourism industry has boomed, which has put money in a lot of people's pockets, but has distorted local economies somewhat. Better management is required, for example cracking down on AirBnB and NOT building that new cruise liner terminal. Unfortu…

(Calling yourself a "refugee" as a rich immigrant is a bit off-puting, imho) Why do you say that the rise in housing prices has been due to AirBnB but not to rich immigrants? It seems a bit odd. Both can outbid the average native and just push prices high. Many rich immigrants also buy up loads of property for speculative/investment purposes, not just to live in. >has a large amount of cultural baggage from quite fra…

We lived in Lisbon for a year. While lots of city centers have had housing converted to Short-term Rentals, Lisbon is at an entirely different level. There, entire apartment buildings (6-10 units) are converted to Airbnbs/hotels/hostels. There are streets in the more touristy areas where every other building is for STRs (buildings that were clearly built as long-term housing).

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

#179

Post by ReptileMan »

foogazi wrote: post #43
ReptileMan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good arguments that foreigners should only be allowed to own real estate only in specific places and that citizenship should be by blood only for small countries - let's say under 100000 sq km and 50 million people. Too easy for them to be overtaken by global elite otherwise.

> There are good arguments that foreigners should only be allowed to own real estate only in specific places What are the good arguments ? Do you think the “global elite” is invading Portugal ?

The poorer part. The richer are busy fucking up London, New York and Vancouver and other desirable places.

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

#180

Post by outworlder »

wtcactus wrote: post #129

Portuguese here. I think this title is a bit sensationalist. It's true that a middle class Portuguese, with the extremely heavy income/property taxes we have to pay, will find it very difficult to live in Lisbon's or Porto's city center in a medium-upper apartment. Lisbon (and even more Porto) do have an extensive metro line though, and you can rent/buy an apartment on the outskirts (although still served by metro li…

> But more than that, vast areas of the country are extremely deserted and housing is extremely cheap there (a similar house in the interior goes for about 20% of one in Lisbon/Porto).

Yeah. Given that the large cities no longer qualify for 'golden visas', I think the government wants external money to go to these areas.

> Decades old mismanagement

That's quite sad to hear.

I was (guess I still am) thinking about moving to Portugal at some point, perhaps for retirement. Every single person I have ever spoken to... they can only sing praises to Portugal. Sure, sometimes they complain about bureaucracy. That's probably worrying, since most are brazilians and we supposedly used to that. If they complain, that must be bad :)

I really hope Portugal will get better.

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