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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

#71

Post by BlargMcLarg »

rjzzleep wrote: post #57
TekMol wrote: post #7

I hope Portugal won't tackle it like my country, with a cap on rent and other market distortions. I think that only makes it worse. Fun fact: I - as a single - live in a way too big, luxurious and expensive apartment because of this. I rented it, when I was still working for the man and was making a killing. Now I live a much more modest 4-hour-workweek life. It would be better for me to move to an apartment half the…

I don't think Germany is a great example at all cause they would rather rent out to a good German girl who's dad has money than to a foreign professional who has a longterm work contract in Germany. I agree that the annoying lifestyle expats are a problem, but bringing up something completely unrelated with a whole host of its own issues is a really weird way to make a point.

It's a combination of things really.

Lack of building when the population is still growing.

Encouraging single lifestyle, both by kicking out kids early and shacking up later.

Cases where sitting on an empty property is risk free.

Infrastructure increases taking valuable space.

Giving early birds great deals compared to today, making them sit on huge housing for a pittance and making moving out a terrible deal.

And politically, there simply is no immediate incentive to solve things when the current population of homeowners does not contain enough people to vote in favor of those that don't own homes.

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

#72

Post by outworlder »

ReptileMan wrote: post #13
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #2

This same story seems to be playing out anywhere that attracts it and allows it.

There are good arguments that foreigners should only be allowed to own real estate only in specific places and that citizenship should be by blood only for small countries - let's say under 100000 sq km and 50 million people. Too easy for them to be overtaken by global elite otherwise.

> There are good arguments that foreigners should only be allowed to own real estate only in specific places

In the context of receiving visas, that's exactly what already happens in Portugal.

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

#74

Post by josefresco »

foogazi wrote: post #46
josefresco wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the wealthy with vacation homes on Cape Cod didn't get your memo. Our local businesses don't have enough workers due to unattainable housing. Enjoy your long lines, reduced hours and hollow communities! At least there will be lots of pickleball courts!

> Our local businesses don't have enough workers due to unattainable housing. due to not paying enough

There is no workforce. It's not a matter of paying more, it's a lack of workers aka families. The average age of someone living on Cape Cod has increased every year for decades. The cost of housing after COVID went from "unreasonable" to "insane".

Local businesses and towns are throwing money at the few young people still here in an attempt to recruit workers but there just isn't enough to handle the scale up for summer volume. The band-aid for years was J1 workers but it's no longer enough.

The wealthy don't think about Cape Cod for 1 second once they cross the canal, or leave the runway in Hyannis/MV/Nantucket. They seemingly don't realize that their "tax dollars" which they claim are a gift to the local region, aren't helping or solving any of these problems.

What we're seeing now is consolidation of businesses, and the construction of worker "dormitory" housing. That's the future for our region. Multi-million dollar trophy homes, and worker dormitories.

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

#76

Post by andrepd »

madaxe_again wrote: post #17

There’s much truth here, but it isn’t the entire picture. Lisboa and Oporto are hideously overpriced, and it is indeed hard to see how a normal Portuguese earner can afford to live in either. Even Vila Nova de Gaia, which was the “cheap” side of Oporto, is now parlously expensive. This effect has bled along the coast, and many coastal villages now ask €200k for an unmodernised one bedroom house. But… the interior of…

Well the problem is (1) jobs and (2) many people simply don't want to live in a town with 1000 people and nothing to do.

(1) Bar agriculture and remote work, there are very few jobs in the interior of the country. I think in this forum we may have a skewed perspective since our sector is by far the one where remote work is most common. But most people simply don't have the option to earn 10x minimum wage from their computer while sitting in an idyllic mountainside village.

(2) Many people like living in rural areas. That's great! But many people also do not. I like nature walks and mountain biking and clean air as much as the other guy, but I also like restaurants and classical music concerts and nights out. I sort of have that right now by living in a rural area 10m away from a mid-sized (150k pop) town, but I don't think I would like very much to live in the middle of Trás-os-Montes for more than a few months.

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

#77

Post by caycep »

rmbyrro wrote: post #62
motohagiography wrote: post #29

Some Canadian cities responded to this with a foreign buyers tax, notably in Vancouver. Florida has a method for balancing its "snowbird" population to do with foreign buyers. Personally, I think this is the effect of governments themselves no longer believing in nations and borders or a responsibility for them, and simply importing polarized populations of both very rich and very poor people whose effect in concert…

The Portuguese case is quite different, I think. Canada has a well-developed and diversified economy. Portugal needs to import a lot from the world, but has very little to offer in exchange. They found something: their real estate and city center spaces. The country NEEDS this foreign income. It's not a self-sustainable economy and the world won't work for them for free. If the Portuguese want to solve this issue, on…

The question in my mind is how can a country like Portugal grow something home grown, industry/economy wise to ameliorate this situation?

Ukraine had traditional industries but it seems like the IT/knowledge worker base they built up over the past 5-10 years seems to be softening some of the economic blows of the war for them, but I can't imaging IT is the answer to every country...

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

#78

Post by eitally »

gr1zzlybe4r wrote: post #20

What countries aren't struggling with this sort of dynamic? I almost think that the US is doing pretty well with this in the sense that you can still move somewhere that's cheap relative to your salary, but that only holds true if you're able to do it with remote work. So, maybe it's not true at all.

I don't think the US is doing a good job of this at all. There's a huge amount of policy-driven gate-keeping that's both ejecting lower income residents from tier 1 & 2 cities [due mostly to cost pressures], and preventing significant infrastructure projects that would ameliorate some of the increasingly pressurized (and politicized) demand signals (better public transport, more lower income housing, improvements in public education - infrastructure & programs).

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

#79

Post by dougmwne »

andrepd wrote: post #60
dougmwne wrote: post #16

Sounds like the Portuguese government should start building flats as fast as possible. Other countries in the EU do it and it works.

Unfortunately in Portugal as in almost everywhere else the government has little incentive to do so: as the ruling class is comprised almost entirely of wealthier people with lots of assets, they (1) don't suffer from the insane housing prices and (2) indeed as proprietors benefit from the surge in housing asset prices.

Sure that is a headwind, but it's certainly not impossible to get your government to work for you instead of against you. While there are many examples of hopelessly corrupt, democracy-in-name-only governments, there are also governments that respond to the needs of the majority to keep from getting thrown out in the next elections.

Generally, having all these big money foreigners trying to come to your country is a good thing. It sure beats having no industry and you can crank up the tax heat on them as high as you want since nonresident-noncitizens don't vote. The real problem is that the Portuguese government is not being made to share the bounty of a few winners with the rest of the population, who are instead left to just deal with the externalities.

There is another path that does not involve locking the doors and hanging up a "closed for business" sign.

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

#80

Post by outworlder »

madaxe_again wrote: post #17

There’s much truth here, but it isn’t the entire picture. Lisboa and Oporto are hideously overpriced, and it is indeed hard to see how a normal Portuguese earner can afford to live in either. Even Vila Nova de Gaia, which was the “cheap” side of Oporto, is now parlously expensive. This effect has bled along the coast, and many coastal villages now ask €200k for an unmodernised one bedroom house. But… the interior of…

> But… the interior of the country is still facing depopulation, and property prices and rents here (between Bragança and Miranda) are still low. A five bedroom house in a town in decent condition can be had for €100k. There’s a beautiful 16th c. T8 palazzo needing modernisation in our nearest town for €80k.

That's exactly what I saw when I was looking at properties there. And honestly the towns where some of the cheap properties were, were not half bad. They looked like they had all necessary amenities. I can't speak for their job markets though, which could be the main reason for the issue.

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