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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

#301

Post by woodpanel »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #296
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…

This seems to be a problem everywhere around the world in big cities. What’s propping all of these property prices up? Supply and demand rules don’t seem to apply at all. You might have thousands of empty apartments in a city yet the price only keeps going up. Everything is broken, but housing is particularly broken.

> What’s propping all of these property prices up?

Money printing, first and foremost

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

#303

Post by Manuel_D »

citilife wrote: post #275
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…

Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Similarly, you can loosen building codes to increase production of homes, limit visa duration, require citizenship for home ownership, etc. Those are some obvious fixes, why is the governme…

This is very simplistic reasoning. For instance:

> If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs).

Unless your domestic business requires imported goods to run its business. Then you've just increased costs for your domestic industry.

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

#304

Post by mikestew »

marcodiego wrote: post #235
marcodiego wrote: post #31

One of my students got a job offer in Portugal before the pandemic. He personally came to thank me for being his teacher; he is a good, dedicated student. Pandemic came, he stayed in Brazil doing remote work. Found him a few days ago. He told me he gave up going to Portugal and decided to stay in Brazil for now mostly because cost of living there. His initial salary would be 1.6K euros.

For people asking about the salary: yes it is per month. Also compare it to Brazilian reality: median programmer salary here is, according to a quick google search: "The estimated salary for a computer programmer is $62,420 per year in Brazil, IN.", which comes to around 10-12K euros a year. My experience when I was a developer is really around that value. Getting 1.6K euros a month is a VERY good initial salary in B…

"The estimated salary for a computer programmer is $62,420 per year in Brazil, IN."

As sibling has stated, Brazil (properly pronounced "BRAY-zil") is a small town in the U. S. state of Indiana. What amazes me though, as one that grew up probably 20 miles from the town, is that anyone in Brazil, IN is paying $62K/year. But it's been 30 years since I lived anywhere near there, looks like it's grown a little.

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

#305

Post by spaniard89277 »

bieh wrote: post #138

I moved to Lisbon in 2020, and I've become increasingly aware of the impact that high-income remote-worker immigrants like me are having on the city, and other similar places. I've been thinking of building something to try and help: https://www.reddit.com/r/PortugalExpats/comments/vy0i5r/crit... It's proved... controversial! I'd be interested to get HNs take.

You can't solve the issue unless you build (much) more housing. An app to donating to charity is like nothing. You have good intentions but it is what it is.

And even if you build housing, you somehow need to reduce the induced demand.

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

#306

Post by spaceman_2020 »

JoeJonathan wrote: post #264
jseliger wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In what way is building more housing simple? If it were that straightforward, California (which has much more space and money) would have done it, and Californians wouldn't be moving to Portugal.

The lack of housing in gigantic states like California is baffling to me as someone who comes from an incredibly densely populated country.

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

#307

Post by FerociousTimes »

capableweb wrote: post #268
jseliger wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like. What? Have you ever been in Lisbon? The city is pretty dense as it is. You could mostly just build higher, and that has its limits too, depending on the structure and foundation. Adding more housing outside the core of the city might not be attractive enough. And increasing the density of people also means you need to incr…

Why does everyone want to live in Lisbon?

There are other decent metropolises in Portugal and other fun spots around the country not to get crammed in the capital.

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

#308

Post by buscoquadnary »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #296
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…

This seems to be a problem everywhere around the world in big cities. What’s propping all of these property prices up? Supply and demand rules don’t seem to apply at all. You might have thousands of empty apartments in a city yet the price only keeps going up. Everything is broken, but housing is particularly broken.

I've been thinking about this I think it is the end result of globalization. First we could ship stuff overseas, then we could ship jobs overseas, now people are realizing they can ship their house overseas, and Portugal has a much nicer climate and weather than Shanghai so why not move there. Basically with the advent of the internet and the rise in remote work there's no more reason people really feel tied to a place, so in the most desirable places in the world you are no longer just competing against the people in your state or country, that real estate is now on the global market against 7 billion other people.

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

#310

Post by dougmwne »

kipchak wrote: post #220
dogman144 wrote: post #99

I don’t know what’s the correct approach with this. I’m a globe trotting engineer who understands globalism and what access tech is opening up to it. I don’t mean being a digital nomad. Rather, tech is collapsing or expanding concepts of borders, nationalism and so on in very meaningful ways. That’s a hugely compelling area to work in vs chasing an OKR for Google ads. I don’t think it’s reversible, and I find a lot o…

I think the fundamental question is by what right does someone have "right" to something like land or the buildings on it, by the open market and wealth or by already living there? Neither is really fair or equitable. But I worry what will happen as more people start to feel (justifiably so) they're getting a raw deal on both fronts.

The answer to your question is sovereignty and it is quite settled by this point in global governance. Who has it and who they gave it up to. As a republic, the citizens of Portugal are sovereign and they have the right to decide who gets to live where and for how much. The citizens can also choose to give up their sovereignty to others (the EU, globalism) or not exercise it (don’t vote or don’t hold their officials accountable).
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