Golden Visas haven’t fuelled house price hikes

The spokesman for the Portuguese association of real estate developers and investors has slammed suggestions that Portugal’s heated property market in Lisbon, Porto and parts of the Algarve has anything to do with the Golden Visa programme.

Hugo Santos Ferreira, President of the APPII says that a lack of housing for the Portuguese middle classes and Portugal’s Authorisation for Residence for Investment (ARI) programme (introduced in 2012 to kickstart the country’s sagging property market after the Great Recession) are not related.
The opinion, which has been voiced before when the Government scrapped the eligibility to obtain a Golden Visa via the €500,000 property option in Portugals’ two main cities and the more developed coastal parts of the Algarve in terms of tourism, has been raised again.
This time real estate developers and investors are “surprised and concerned” after the Prime Minister António Costa informed that the Government is reevaluating the Golden Visas programme, which since it was launched has now attracted €6Bn of investment, of which €456 million was netted between January and September this year.
On the sidelines of Web Summit, António Costa said that all possibilities (including scrapping the programme) were on the table, but that: “right now there is no justification to continue the programme” which has been in place for a decade.
In an interview with ECO, the APPII president said it was “pointless now to change the Golden Visa programme at a time when all countries were competing to get all the international investment that they could”.
Hugo Santos Ferreira said it was “a myth to say that this programme has led to lack of accessible housing, or that it has been responsible for the high price of housing in Portugal.
“We have a serious housing problem in Portugal, but the away ahead is not by stifling demand”.