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Vítor Reis, the former president of the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation, told CNN Portugal that the problem of lack of supply of housing cannot be solved with "hostile measures towards those who invest" in the property market in the country.
The APR (Portuguese Association of Residential Tourism Resorts) believes that that the ban on golden visas has the potential for “devastating” results in tourism and investment in the country. They argue that many of the properties bought through the golden visa “are not suitable for Portuguese families to live their daily lives”.
Changes have already previously been brought in to restrict the issuance of golden visas related to real estate investment, one of these measures being to ban properties in densely populated areas and tourist hotspots from being eligible for the visa.
Those who back the end of the golden visa hope that it will restrict foreign investors from buying up property in the market at high values which is said to have led to inflated property prices and rents in recent years.
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This banning of the golden visa is the best news Portugal could have received. The tourist market maxed out as did the airports this year and the country couldn't cope with more plans landing but natives need houses, some choose to overlook this.
By Benjamin Freddie Lee from Alentejo on 25 Sep 2023, 20:35
What does the end of the Golden Visa mean? It means billions less money pouring into Portugal by people who eat out every night, buy lots from stores, buy from all types of stores, buy cars, pay tolls, pay taxes (VAT, property, IMT), less airfare and hotel taxes, less rental cars rented, etc.
Worse, it won't help the housing crisis at all, but it will hurt it People required to buy 280,000-500,00 Euro homes were not competing for homes the poor and housing challenged needed.
The GV lifted Portugal financially by almost $9 billion, just in investment purchases. Maybe 3x that was spent in country without being able to be accounted for. Furnishings, cars, employment, restaurants, stores, etc.
Now the anti-immigrant side can smile, all the way to less taxes for social programs, no change in housing availability, and far more wealthy people spending money in country.
Truly a virtue signaling failure. Makes some happy, and will damage them at the same time.
Nick
By Nickolas Wolter from Algarve on 25 Sep 2023, 21:44
Golden Visa came about as part of a stimulus package in 2012 so change and termination were always inevitable. What is regrettable is that the Government has politicised the matter to scapegoat for their own policy failures using Wealthy investors as the smokescreen. Portugal should celebrate the fact that quality investorss and tax payers have invested. It appears the Government is not anti immigration judging by the way they issue all other visa-types, the way the treat bona-fide investors they lured in shows me that they resent Wealthy investors as it fits the narrative that speaks to the poor they feel obliged to answer to.
By Andrew Rissik from Lisbon on 26 Sep 2023, 10:50
Far more, @Nikolas? Everything else you wrote makes perfect sense. This is a stupid change. It might make some people feel better about their situation, but only if they don't think.
By Brian Sanders from Other on 26 Sep 2023, 14:39
So few people understand the dynamics of the GV, and shouldn't be commenting here on what they don't know. Non-residents account for only 7% of property sales in Portugal, so a marginal amount. Of these, GV holders' purchases will be a further tiny share of this 7%. I'd guess GVs account for fewer than one property sale in a hundred. It means that the GV is almost irrelevant to the Portuguese property market, and in any case, can only have an impact on the high value properties, not the mainstream market where the Portuguese are buying. It is nonsense to suggest the GV is causing or contributing to property price inflation. This has also occurred in countries which don't offer GVs. Vendors of high value properties will find it harder you sell now that there's no GV inciting foreign buyers to purchase in Portugal. How the end of the GV can be seen to have any positive effects is beyond me. It is more about appealing to people's jealousy and sense of injustice that they don't have the level of wealth of a GV holder. It's got nothing to do with the finances or economics of the housing market.
By Billy Bissett from Porto on 26 Sep 2023, 18:53
Mainly populist virtue signalling by a government that will need people to vote them in for the next election, without actually solving any problems.
To state the obvious but the housing crisis is a supply problem, and it is a supply problem at the lower end of market, for reasonably priced T1s and T2s. For rentals, the government wants the private landlord to solve the problem, and to "incentivise" these private landlords to invest in new properties etc it has actually done the opposite by imposing ever increasing restrictions.
To solve a supply problem, you need more properties in the market, so you need to build more properties, as I said, at the lower end of the market, probably social/public housing, built by the government on a massive scale. Then they can rent them out at affordable prices and probably recoup their investment over say a 10 to 15 year period (as much of the land will already by owned by local councils etc)
One comment about Golden Visas. Maybe the government missed a trick by not defining the investment criteria well enough. Something like the equivalent of the UK government's SEIS scheme to invest in new businesses and start-ups would have been better for the economy than property investment (and I know that there was some opportunity here already with the present scheme), but hey...
By Eddie from Algarve on 27 Sep 2023, 12:09
If any of you commenting here were really on the ‘inside’ you would know i.e. the political elite, the banking sector, Inv. funds, real estate market as a whole had at the time, a negative loan portfolio carry of circa €20 billion, also simply known as totally unacceptable ratio of bad loans on their books. €20B is not much for the big guns in Europe but a tsunami seismic wave for the Portuguese market.
You would know, the housing market was massively inflated, in some cases, within a 7 day period, house prices went north to well over 200% so as to accommodate the €500k minimum entry limit and begin to ‘revalue' as much as the bad debt as possible? You have understood correctly. We took homes worth €150k, €180k, €200k, €250k Etcetera off the market and returned them back to the market days later for €500K, €600K, €650K, €750K Etcetera. Hard to believe but it happened and with the other schemes alike, the pain for the collective Portuguese people has been unbearable. You would know this if you ever bothered to understand what is really going on inside the Portuguese Soul.
Yes! We had our very own internal subprime scandal operating right under the whole worlds eyes.
So, the GV lifted absolutely ’nothing’ not in real terms when considering the 'collective' financial impact -pain- it’s had on the collective.
For obvious reasons, we have nothing against the wealthy nor anti-immigration, but please seek first to understand then be understood such as the most simple aspects to life e.g. the world was not just created for the financial markets, for investors, nor just stores, cars, restaurants, hotels, healthy profit margins and indeed was not just created for the wealthy, It was created for 'everyone’.
By Miguel from Lisbon on 05 Oct 2023, 21:55