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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

#311

Post by taylorius »

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…

"Indeed, my own favourite 'coffee shop' got turned into a chain tequila bar."

The horror! ;-)

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

#312

Post by abeppu »

ryukafalz wrote: post #131
solveit wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Building physical houses to sit empty as a financial instrument has to be one of the peaks of capitalist insanity. I quite agree, and I am therefore very suspicious that this is actually happening in significant volume! I have never seen convincing evidence that this happens, and it, at least superficially, makes no sense as a money-making scheme (Worried about degradation? That just means you should get insurance.…

Indeed. I'm most familiar with the US market so can't speak for European countries which may be different, but here's a graph of estimated vacant units held off-market against total housing units in the US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TiNw

Is this a high or a low number? On the one hand, https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/2020-point-in-time-co...

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

#313

Post by spaceman_2020 »

sofixa wrote: post #284
WalterBright wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is not the result of profits, gouging, etc. It's the result of funding the deficit by running the printing press. (Or the modern equivalent, creating debt backed by nothing.) The proof is the observation that endemic inflation only happens in countries with fiat money systems.

I'm not sure you deserve engaging, but I'll give it a try. So you're just going to ignore a war involving two of the biggest exporters of some of the main raw materials we have (foodstuffs and energy) on the planet and associated supply problems on crucial things? Not to mention a pandemic that wrecked havoc on supply lines. None of that matters, your theory goes, it's purely a monetary phenomenon, because only count…

Inflation isn’t terribly bad in countries that didn’t print wild amounts of money.

Like in India, inflation is almost back in control, and we didn’t print much money.

Same in China.

I haven’t run the numbers but if you were to chart inflation vs the money printing done by an economy, you’d likely find a positive correlation.

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

#314

Post by orthoxerox »

subsubzero wrote: post #171

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. Mo…

> Those that owned houses also moved as they were fed up with crime and could get a way better house somewhere else.

How do the criminals afford to live in the area?

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

#315

Post by kitten_mittens_ »

armchairhacker wrote: post #265
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…

I’ve literally seen this same exact comment many, many times except with different locations. Eastern Mass, New York, Ontario, Britain, and even starting to hear it from suburban areas. The exact same concepts: cheap grandfathered lease, hoping the landlord doesn’t cancel, can’t afford rent despite making >100k, “luxury apartments”, empty apartments, illegal renting (e.g. AirBnB) and shadiness.

You leave out Western Mass though.

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

#316

Post by WalterBright »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #313
sofixa wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you deserve engaging, but I'll give it a try. So you're just going to ignore a war involving two of the biggest exporters of some of the main raw materials we have (foodstuffs and energy) on the planet and associated supply problems on crucial things? Not to mention a pandemic that wrecked havoc on supply lines. None of that matters, your theory goes, it's purely a monetary phenomenon, because only count…

Inflation isn’t terribly bad in countries that didn’t print wild amounts of money. Like in India, inflation is almost back in control, and we didn’t print much money. Same in China. I haven’t run the numbers but if you were to chart inflation vs the money printing done by an economy, you’d likely find a positive correlation.

The WSJ ran a chart a few weeks ago showing inflation lagged money printing by about 13 months.

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

#317

Post by tuatoru »

In the long run the problem is self-correcting.

If workers can't afford to live in what were the important cities, they live elsewhere.

Eventually employers move to where the workers are. The formerly important cities become tourist meccas like Venice or Granada, or ghost towns.

This is happening to London and Lisbon, and to a lesser extent to Amsterdam, Paris, New York and San Francisco, and other cities.

It's a pity, because the famous cities got big early because they're in good places for trade. Their replacements are second best in this regard.

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

#318

Post by dougmwne »

tumetab1 wrote: post #156

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 populatio…

Oh yeah, there’s the problem right there. They stopped building houses in 2010!

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

#319

Post by bagacrap »

orthoxerox wrote: post #314
subsubzero wrote: post #171

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. Mo…

> Those that owned houses also moved as they were fed up with crime and could get a way better house somewhere else. How do the criminals afford to live in the area?

and the only reason they could get a way better house somewhere else is bc their own home greatly appreciated in value... so let's not paint homeowners as victims here

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

#320

Post by paganel »

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…

> but this is due to AirBnB

Others have said it before, but mass tourism is the new Dutch disease [1]. Pure tourist cities like Venice are already too affected by it to have a chance of getting back to a normal economic and social life, but there are other cities that are still trying to fight it, like Barcelona. Not sure if there are any political forces in Lisbon or Porto ready to take the same stance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

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