Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 817 posts

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

#781

Post by bamboozled »

tbdenney wrote: post #653
intothemild wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lived in Amsterdam a few years back, the AirBNBs made it freaking torture during summer.

The old wooden buildings where one could hear everything, people arriving and talking loudly in the stairwells then banging their suitcases up the stairs etc.

We left, couldn't deal wit it.

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

#782

Post by somewhereoutth »

unmole wrote: post #632
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

> Why is that cringe? Because words have meanings: refugee /rɛfjʊˈdʒiː/ noun a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. Claiming to be a Brexit refugee when there are millions of actual refugees in Europe is cringey to say the least. > Supposedly the economy is going to be downgraded from a developed economy to an "emerging market economy". Anyone cla…

Well I'm watching (from afar) the place I was born and grew up in, the place I call home, burning to the ground. All the good things we stood for - tolerance, pragmatism, good humour, reputation, confidence, common decency, are being lost. All the time the news gets worse - strikes everywhere, shortages, NHS collapsing, people will have to choose between heating and eating this winter. Portugal seems like a well run paradise in comparison.

It is a man made disaster, and I left to escape it.

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

#783

Post by somewhereoutth »

andrepd wrote: post #104
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…

(Calling yourself a "refugee" as a rich immigrant is a bit off-puting, imho) Why do you say that the rise in housing prices has been due to AirBnB but not to rich immigrants? It seems a bit odd. Both can outbid the average native and just push prices high. Many rich immigrants also buy up loads of property for speculative/investment purposes, not just to live in. >has a large amount of cultural baggage from quite fra…

>>has a large amount of cultural baggage from quite frankly medieval times

>I wonder what exactly you mean by this.

I was at a festival last night - the screens by the stage were playing ads in between the acts (that itself is a topic for another day!).

After a cringe-worthy advert for the UK (that I didn't even recognise it was so far fetched), there then appeared a public information message in Portuguese. It said (and I do my best to translate):

"What is the place for a women?" (pause) "Wherever she wants it to be"

Full credit to them for trying to drag themselves into the 21st century, having mostly avoided the 20th - you can see what I'm getting at.

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

#784

Post by somewhereoutth »

paganel wrote: post #320
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://…

Yes exactly this. And like other resource extraction industries, tourism does not provide many high skilled jobs and is not supportive of a growing and successful middle class, favouring wealth holders over wealth creators.

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

#785

Post by somewhereoutth »

pyb wrote: post #338
stavros wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece has the exact same problem. Rents are skyrocketing and people can't afford to live in their own cities. We're building more housing, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Maybe SF doesn't want to build more housing, but this isn't universal.

It's probably not enough new housing is getting built. People don't even remember what a real large-scale housing spree looks like, because these last happened generations ago. These are transformative events. eg in Athens in the 1950s-1970s : https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191011-the-surprising-...

Indeed - in fact I live in a suburb of Lisbon that was just fields maybe 30 years ago - I am continually astonished at the vast scale of reasonable quality high density housing, all with schools, parks, hospitals etc - there must be hundreds of thousands of people here, a miracle of urban planning. Apparently the Lisbon middle classes fled to these new suburbs to get away from their small damp draughty downtown apartments, which ironically have now become so desirable.

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

#786

Post by somewhereoutth »

MrPatan wrote: post #678
galfarragem wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, that’s the ultimate illusion. Portugal is already one of the EU countries with more houses per capita. More houses means more houses for foreigners. Locals would never be able to afford them. This is just the dark side of globalism cheered by Portuguese politics for decades. Competition is global now. Local middle class is having their lunch eaten by foreign rich people or even middle classes from wealthier cou…

> More houses means more houses for foreigners. Locals would never be able to afford them How do you arrive to that conclusion? - If you built 100 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 10 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 1 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 100k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 10k new houses…

Interestingly, building new houses won't necessarily make prices go down, as we'll all just compete for the more desirable ones, and pay whatever we can afford to 'get ahead of the Jones'. It might mean that the quality of what we end up living in is better though as the rubbish houses get left unfilled.

Anyway, the problems is not so much that there is not enough housing, but that it is on the wrong place.

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

#787

Post by somewhereoutth »

Ligma123 wrote: post #696
garyclarke27 wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, it's nowhere near dire - it's expensive yes, like just about every other capital city - Lisbon is still way cheaper than Paris or London. This poorly written rambling rant of an article has some valid points but no insight. I moved to Cascais near Lisbon 5 years ago because of Brexit and yes property has boomed, like in many other countries but money printing QE is not just a Portuguese phenomena. 10 Years a…

The average salary is quite low and those people are struggling a lot with their expenses and are completely unable to set money aside for a rainy day. >even here in Cascais you see lots of unbuilt land We have no intention of becoming a concrete jungle. >Their job protection mentality needs to change towards a more dynamic job creation mentality No thank you, please just keep your opinions to yourself, and honestly…

This is the kind of attitude that needs to change in Portugal if you want it to become something more than a playground for the rich.

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

#788

Post by [deleted] »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #428
zizee wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that could be one of the extra factors that we're looking for. People want/expect more, which has caused people to have to pay more. But I'm doubtful that it is going to account for a lot of the cost of living issue in Portugal. I'd still like the GP to connect the dots for me on his "it's all demographics" argument. It sounds like are argument you hear on Reddit.

I think you're missing the point. For example, when my siblings were kids we all lived in 1 house. I have 3 siblings so there were 6 of us including my parents. In 1 house. As we graduated from college we moved out. Now there were 6 of us in 5 houses. Beyond the raw house count, you're going to need more space. Multi-bedroom homes have shared common space. The house we grew up in had 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 1 livin…

[deleted]

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

#789

Post by [deleted] »

bobthepanda wrote: post #755
II2II wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most younger people share accommodations (e.g. have a roommate). Most older people share accommodations (e.g. have a family). There is also some, for the lack of a more sensitive word, attrition as time goes on. Yes, your family has grown and the amount of space your family needs in order to maintain their quality of life has increased. Yet it has only increased by a relatively small amount. I am also going to echo w…

Housing supply doesn’t grow by all that much though, so a “relatively small amount” is enough to tighten a market. In any case, censuses define a household as people living together in a unit, which would account for roommates. Portugal has gone from 3.7 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2011. Housing 10.3M people at 3.7 requires 2.8m units; 2.6 requires 4m units. And that may be just what Portuguese people have to put up with, but…

[deleted]

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

#790

Post by zizee »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #428
zizee wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that could be one of the extra factors that we're looking for. People want/expect more, which has caused people to have to pay more. But I'm doubtful that it is going to account for a lot of the cost of living issue in Portugal. I'd still like the GP to connect the dots for me on his "it's all demographics" argument. It sounds like are argument you hear on Reddit.

I think you're missing the point. For example, when my siblings were kids we all lived in 1 house. I have 3 siblings so there were 6 of us including my parents. In 1 house. As we graduated from college we moved out. Now there were 6 of us in 5 houses. Beyond the raw house count, you're going to need more space. Multi-bedroom homes have shared common space. The house we grew up in had 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 1 livin…

Yes, I think I was missing your point.

I think that your thrust was that smaller average household sizes means more dwellings are required. This is a good point.

Shrinking average household sizes could be explained by the shrinking size of the average family, or it could be explained by shifting expectations, by people wanting more.

If you take a population where all single people are willing to live in share houses, your average size of your household goes up. If all the single people expect to live in their own apartment because they want their own space, own bathroom/kitchen, then this would drive down the average household size.

I would expect both of these dynamics to be at play here. Average family sizes are decreasing in most developed countries. People's expectations have also risen with regards to housing.

I wonder what effect each has on the demand for housing in Portugal?

BTW: Your personal example is possibly a good example of shifting expectations in society, whether you recognise it or not. Every sibling moved into a place by themselves? Did no one move into a sharehouse? I probably do not live in the same country as you, but it used to be in my country that when you first move out of home it is not the norm to live by yourself. What's the norm these days?

Post reply on HN