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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

#651

Post by petre »

NoLinkToMe wrote: post #413
petre wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 M…

> 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. Eh, not anymore...

So it has already happened.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-11/russia-be...

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

#652

Post by tumetab1 »

dougmwne wrote: post #149
tumetab1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that even 30% of people would consider having government as a landlord good alternative. There are so many news of poor management that depending on the government to fix your plumbing in your house seems like a nightmare scenario to me.

This is actually a good role for government intervention. The exact mechanism is not important, but the concept is. Builders tend to be out of cycle with housing need due to the length time it takes to get a project to completion. After a bust, they get very skittish and underinvest for the first half of the cycle creating a shortage and boom. Government can provide a base level of housing builds to make sure the mar…

It makes sense your idea on itself but in the case of Portugal would not have worked. The market bust happened around 2002 and then the government had a debt crises in 2010.

As it's common, the housing market reflects many errors and not just one.

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

#653

Post by tbdenney »

intothemild wrote: post #642
Hermitian909 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prohibition never works, and piracy is a reflection of an unmet need. Banning things merely airs out open wounds, and leads to grey-markets such as shady uber/airbnb equivalents within the city. What do you mean by "works"? Yes, grey markets will pop up, but if Portugal banned AirBnB style renting that the market for that housing wouldn't shrink? It seems to me that prohibition might be a useful tool in a more comp…

I wish more cities would ban or limit AirBnB. Take Amsterdam for example. A good decade ago, it was crowded in the tourism months (summer), but not too bad. Now it's crowded in the off season too, and during the summer months even more so, to the point where walking around is really hard. The mayor seems to constantly want to get rid of cannabis, which won't solve the problem, the issue isn't the weed tourism... it's…

AirBnB already is limited in Amsterdam: "According to Dutch regulations, you can only rent out your entire home in Amsterdam for a maximum of 30 nights per year, unless you have a specific permit that allows you to rent out your home for more nights, such as a short term stay license."

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/860/amsterdam

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

#654

Post by Tade0 »

ssizn wrote: post #637
bowsamic wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: shitter news won't let me post a reply so I will just delete my comment

>Many thousands are going to freeze to death in their homes this Christmas. Unlike in Europe. Oh wait.

Every time this topic is touched I learn something new about the standard of comfort that western Europe enjoys.

I've been told that in Germany the gas-saving measures will make people turn down their temperature during winter to 20-21°C from the, supposedly, standard 24-25°C.

But that can't be right, can it?

When I lived in Italy we had below 20°C during winter because the wooden windows from the 70s not replaced since then due to various, not strictly financial reasons, didn't provide much insulation.

Over here in eastern Europe it was always "18°C and put a sweater on".

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

#655

Post by tibbydudeza »

But not everybody lives in Lisbon ???.

Is all the economic activity concentrated in this city or is it a case of Portuguese professionals working in the city being outpriced by investors for AirBnB ???.

Outlying suburbs away from the CBD must be more affordable - why is this not an option ???.

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

#656

Post by wikfwikf »

screye wrote: post #363
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…

Airbnb and uber for all their benefits have taken away a lot of urban planning capabilities of local govts. At the same time, they expose the general unwillingness of local govts to accomodate the need of the population or those who bring in economic value (tourists, transplants). If you are becoming a tourist hub, then create an off-town tourist area and add a convenient transit line/people mover to the central part…

I'm generally a YIMBY and in favor of housing, but are we really so sure that new housing will solve the problems in cities like Barcelona or Lisbon (where tourists and people coming in attracted by the good quality of life generally have higher disposable incomes than most locals).

If you just add housing, isn't it possible that the effect is like adding roads to prevent traffic congestion? The number of people coming in just increases even more until the marginal attractiveness is the same. From the point of view of locals this means that there are even more outsiders, and the affordability is just as bad.

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

#658

Post by jonathanstrange »

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…

You're right that any negative trends foster radical views such as nationalism and communism. However, the arguments you mention wouldn't work in Portugal.

Portugal used to even have a negative net migration rate and suffers a labor shortage. Right now, the net migration rate is positive and low at around 0.5. That's a good trend, but there is still too much emigration of skilled Portuguese people due to weak economy and structural problems.

The problem is not immigration, the problem is that wealth is distributed very unevenly. Average salaries are low in Portugal, many people have to do with very low salaries and few people in Lisbon and Porto make a lot of money. Although it luckily went down from nearly 0.4, the Gini index in Portugal is still relatively high for a Western European country at 0.33. This wealth disparity in combination with laws and politics that favor landlords, property speculation, and building hotels instead of apartment buildings lead to the housing crisis.

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

#659

Post by wikfwikf »

imsaw wrote: post #634
epolanski wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever heard the absurd levels of this blog post and I've lived in few expensive cities from italy, poland and switzerland, where it is impossible for middle class locals to live there.

Compared with the 2, how is Poland expensive?

Locals have a much lower income than Italy or Switzerland. Thus they are still getting priced out of cities where they have lived a long time. In Warsaw the locals are often priced out by the returning diaspora. See Lebanon, parts of Italy, Ireland in the past, etc.

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

#660

Post by jonathanstrange »

FerociousTimes wrote: post #307
capableweb wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Usually for work-related reasons.
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