House sales plummeted 35.25% in April
Uncertainty during Portugal’s lockdown over jobs and the ability to pay mortgages long-term despite the Government’s moratorium meant house sales fell 35.25% in April.
And the number of overseas property buyers also fell in Portugal in 2019 as property prices increased that year.
Although the two factors are clearly unrelated, it does add weight to forecasts from analysts in recent weeks that Portugal’s residential property market is cooling.
According to the latest statistics out from the national statistics institute INE, fewer foreigners bought homes in Portugal, but they paid more for them, with the French leading the way.
The data shows that 2019 was a year which saw a slowdown in the number of property transactions from foreigners following the height of the boom seen in 2017 and 2018.
Last year saw 19,000 properties purchased by foreigners, which represented around 8.5% of all properties sold in Portugal.
But the numbers were down 2% in 2018. Nevertheless, average property prices were up 1%, bringing the market in €3.4Bn with overseas buyers representing 13.3% of that total turnover.
However, the fall in transactions looks set to be far worse for 2020 because of the Coronavirus and economic uncertainty.
Data from the INE on house prices in the second quarter shows a reduction of 2.5 percentage points in relation to the first quarter of 2020.
Making a like-for-like comparison, house prices rose 7.8% in the second quarter of this year (April-June) but compared to prices between January and March, the INE data shows a reduction of 2.5 percentage points.
Between April and June 33,398 homes were bought and sold worth €5.1Bn which was a reduction on the same period last year both in terms of the number of properties transacted (down 21.6%) and the total cash amount (down 15.2%).
The Lisbon and Porto regions saw 63.8% of all transactions in the second quarter of the year with a total of 21,305 transactions.