“Portugal could be “Europe’s Florida in real estate” says APEMIP

The President of Portugal’s Association of Real Estate Professionals and Estate Agencies says that Portugal could be the “Florida of Europe” in terms of property.

In an interview with ECO News, Luís Lima points out the strong foreign investment that has been made in Portugal in the last few years and says that overseas money has helped the national economy.
However, Lima warns about property speculation and points out that foreigners are “not stupid” and can up sticks at a moment’s notice and move to another country whose markets have lower prices.
The statement comes after home sales declined by 6.6% in the second quarter of 2019 as “potential overseas buyers may be waking up to the fact that they are being targeted for speculation and stop buying.”
“Just remember what happened five years ago at a time when nobody was being property in Porto, however, prices in Lisbon rose so much that foreign investors went to Porto which at the time had prices that were 40% lower than Lisbon,” he says in the interview with ECO.
Lima says that the foreign investor has money but is not stupid and knows the difference between good and bad business.
“We have bags of potential as a country but we have to have a cap on prices because otherwise, sooner or later, the foreign investors will end up switching markets to, say Tunisia or Greece which have lower prices” says Lima adding that he did not believe that despite the speculation there would be a housing bubble in the coming years.