561–570 of 817 posts
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…
Hard cringe.
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It can also put in place policies to increase native population growth.
No one has found or discovered such policies that work across-the-board.
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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…
Are those really making a dent? What percentage of Lisbons apartments stay empty? What percentage is used for short duration rental? I would think only a small one-digit percentage?
So I now have an apartment that's been empty and useless for 5 years, it did triple in value in the meantime but it's such a huge waste
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So either we preference your 150000 euros (and of course interest and margin on top) or someone having a roof over their head, running water, and even the ability to stay in the same are and building community instead of moving each year due to capital seeking max gains.
But he said he want to do it to help a family, not his pockets. /s
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> over 60% of Lisbon's real estate owned by the city I'm from Lisboa and this can't be true unless you're using some very strange definition of real estate. What's your source for this?
Maybe counting unimproved land?
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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…
The printing never stops
This article makes me realise how fortunate I am to be the children of immigrants. My parents are very family oriented and were somewhat upset when I left my home country (which isn't my parents' original home country) for greener pastures, but if there's one thing immigrants understand, it's that if things are hard, you should move to where things aren't hard! I'm sure the author has their reasons or whatever, but w…
> My parents are very family oriented and were somewhat upset when I left my home country
Also you:
> It's just incredible to me that someone would act against their own economic interests so blatantly
It appears you didn't adopt your parents' family values. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think the strong will to remain near one's roots SHOULD be all that "incredible" to you.
I'm also the child of immigrants, and left their adopted country for another for "greener pastures". But my parents left their home country to escape tyranny, not just economic incentive. They did the hard thing because the other option was dangerous.
Are we really at THAT point? Are we doomed to always run from the tyrant, or can we build a different society where families don't have to be split up.
I think your post is a bit self righteous. Perhaps the demand for your skills in other countries made it easy for you to immigrate. Most cannot do that. They're stuck there, and I think are reasonable to want their country to do a better job supporting the quality of life of it's residents rather than treating them like peasants.
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Germany is working to make its spot on the list. At least in the cities.
Given that rental laws in Germany can't even be broken if you buy a property for your own use ("in theory" yes but in practice...) it is not surprising why the traditional rental market is the last place someone will want to have their property Tenant protection is good, but it breaks down in high-demand situations. And of course the better solution is to solve this on the supply side
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…
Where does this end? A planet full of empty "luxury apartments" and most of us homeless?
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.
Smaller cities and towns are cheap. I've seen government auctions selling apartments for under €5000 which nobody wants. Why? Because people are moving to larger cities. People want opportunities, and the idea of working in some chicken factory (which may have been a perfectly respected career for our parents) is not appealing for the current generation. And the problem in these small towns, is the chicken factory is really the only career prospect you have, so people move elsewhere.
Of course there are rich foreigners buying apartments as investments and renting them on Airbnb, but that's a very small percentage of the housing market. And even if they rented them normally, they'd still be asking for prices that are unaffordable for the average person. I know that because that was me, I emigrated here and bought a luxury apartment and lived in it for 7 years (paying taxes) and now want to rent it out as I moved outside the city.
Unless I rent or sell it for much lower than the market rate, even on the lower end it's still too expensive for the average person. If I sell it, it's probably just going to be poached by someone who will use it as an investment and put it on Airbnb.
My city is building a lot of new developments, but space is limited as young people want to live close to the city center, not somewhere 30 minutes drive away. That is driving up the average price, so you end up with studio apartments costing upwards of €4000/m2, which you need to earn at least €2500/mo to afford, which is well above the average salary. With rising inflation the problem isn't so much people can't afford the mortgage payments (which are slightly lower than renting), but they can't afford to save the 15% needed for a deposit.