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Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

politico.eu

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Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#171

Post by dzhiurgis »

simongray wrote: post #99
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 is not one place with one single bureaucracy.

Of course some places are better, but overall it's clearly blind to own faults.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#172

Post by capableweb »

djbebs wrote: post #170
capableweb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure Germany is famous for its good weather nor good food, but I've only visited a couple of times, never lived there, maybe I missed out on something obvious?

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#173

Post by agos »

scarmig wrote: post #120
agos wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think as ethic concerns about tax elusion as a (big) reason why one wouldn't establish an offshore entity

If you're living offshore and paying taxes to the place you live, there's no particularly good justification (except might makes right) for the US to force you to pay taxes. AFAIK it's the only country, both now and in history, to claim taxation rights over its citizens perpetually no matter where they are.

the comment chain was to which you are responding was not about trying to pay taxes only to the country you're living in (which basically everyone in the world can do minus US citizens), it was about setting up a company in a tax haven (think Cayman Islands) to avoid paying taxes at all because they decided they are too high, which of course raises questions about the morality, legality, and practical details of such a process

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#174

Post by dysoco »

simplotek wrote: post #23
dysoco wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 (...) I have to call bullshit on this one. A few years ago I moved to a different country and I had an awful time trying to find an apartment to rent. Between awfully expensive flats and squalors, I was forced to extend my stay at an hotel for an additional month. This all…

> Why there is demand for offers somewhere between hotels and long-term rentals, which frequently are completely out of reach of those who have to move to a new city in a short notice.

You see that's the problem, I'm not in the US or Europe, long-term rentals are traded in local currency, in a price reasonable to the local economy, whereas AirBnbs are traded in USD at a more global price reasonable for tourists (which is crazy expensive for us, considering our minimum wage is pennies in USD).

Moreover, long-term rentals have certain regulations that favor tenants, like, you can't raise the prices a massive amount compared to inflation while the contract is valid, etc. AirBnbs are not regulated.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#175

Post by notch656c »

slaw wrote: post #127
notch656c wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most third world countries with such bad/slow bureaucracy solve those issues with bribery. I'd hate to live someplace that both has low corruption and such high bureaucratic burdens.

Could you give some examples of these countries?

lmao

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#176

Post by llampx »

bwb wrote: post #134
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…

To note, this isn't always true. My family moved to Portugal in late 2020. Covid played havoc as they had to find ways to digitalize many things their offices were doing. It took my wife 9 months to get her DL exchanged and me 11 months. During that time, you are not driving illegally; you are driving from your foreign license. As long as you have the paper with the exchange info and a picture, you will be fine. It a…

> It also helps if you hire a relocation expert who knows the system. We paid ~$1,500 to a Portuguese American lady who helped us with everything. She handled setting up all our health care, apartment negotiation and contract review, set up all our utilities and phones, all our residency paperwork, DL exchange, bank account, and more. I highly recommend her and any group like her. They know how to work the system.

In the third world, that's called a tout, and they're a symbol of corruption and inefficiency. The only thing missing seems to be bribes paid to move your papers from one desk to the other faster.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#177

Post by Arnt »

Arnt wrote: post #162
fy20 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I see someone downvoted me. Perhaps because it was just an idle question and quite insubstantial?

Thinking about it now, it seems a little bigger than I realised when I wrote it.

I too moved to another country and got a bank account. When the people at the bank asked what I needed, I said something like "well, I'm here to stay and will need all the things regular people have, an account, a card, probably a house loan someday, can you advise me about what I should get today?". Maybe I hadn't yet decided that I wanted to stay for decades when I said that, but the person behind approved of the answer, I could tell.

Saying something vaguely like "I'll do the minimum necessary here and whatever possible in my old country" simply isn't a great way to talk to the people at the bank, at the immigration authority, at the waterworks, all the people who can make your move simple or less so.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#178

Post by bwb »

llampx wrote: post #176
bwb wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To note, this isn't always true. My family moved to Portugal in late 2020. Covid played havoc as they had to find ways to digitalize many things their offices were doing. It took my wife 9 months to get her DL exchanged and me 11 months. During that time, you are not driving illegally; you are driving from your foreign license. As long as you have the paper with the exchange info and a picture, you will be fine. It a…

> It also helps if you hire a relocation expert who knows the system. We paid ~$1,500 to a Portuguese American lady who helped us with everything. She handled setting up all our health care, apartment negotiation and contract review, set up all our utilities and phones, all our residency paperwork, DL exchange, bank account, and more. I highly recommend her and any group like her. They know how to work the system. In…

Not sure what 3rd world means anymore as the cold war is over :), but I think I know what you mean.

What they are called now is a "relocation expert", and they help set everything up for you. They are in no way a symbol of corruption or inefficiency, but rather a professional who knows the system. IE, to get a DL you go this office, you fill out this form, you fax it to x, etc.

Do I wish everything was 100% online and designed with high UX standards? Sure, I also would love if it rained M&Ms on Fridays at 4.11pm :). Both of these things are not going to happen.

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#179

Post by notch656c »

user_named wrote: post #151
AYBABTME wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off course YMMV. But that's not the rule in general. I have recent experience with Korea which is overall quite efficient in fact, and yet it's still a struggle to figure out what I need to do, how to do it, and language barriers don't help.

If a Korean goes to your country and they only speak Korean, is it going to be easy for them?

If they go to California places like the DMV will provide them a free Korean-English translator service. Under AB 60 an undocumented Korean could get a driver license and a free translator service to obtain it. If I am an undocumented immigrant in Korea will they provide a translator for me to get state ID as an "illegal" immigrant?

Honestly I would be shocked if you could point me anywhere else in the world where a Korean could be illegally staying, go to the motor bureau and not only get a free translator but get an official state ID and driver license.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/customer-service/interpreter-s...

Re: Portugal’s digital nomad bubble

#180

Post by presentation »

michaelteter wrote: post #168
presentation wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 att…

That’s all fine and good but if old established cities—which by definition are desirable else they wouldn’t be so established—just cannot change like you’re describing, then they’re doomed no matter what. Never said it’s simple, just stating a fact, and even if some people don’t like it then they have to choose what they value more. Seems like most of these cities just refuse to choose, which is a choice in itself, and then default to the status quo.

Personally if you don’t want to change the physical form of the city too much, the least disruptive approach is to build a lot of efficient transit towards the outskirts. It’s what Tokyo does and it scales to 40m people mostly living in low rise homes, no out of place towers necessary.

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