Association warns of rent increases

The association that represents Portugal’s estate agencies and brokers has warned that rents will likely go up despite the Government’ s Housing Package aimed at providing more housing at affordable rents.

Paulo Caiado, the president of APEMIP says that there is “speculation with surprisingly high rental charges”, particularly in large cities like Lisbon and Porto, because of a “lack of supply and a sharp increase in demand from immigrants”, (many of them from India, Nepal and Bangladesh).
In an interview with Jornal de Negócios/Antena 1 Caiado said that a significant increase in non-new built house sales was unlikely, despite high interest rates and inflation, explaining that house-hunters would “put off their decision to buy”.
However, the APEMIP president said this did not necessarily mean “house prices would fall” and that this would only happen if there was a significant reduction in demand, which wasn’t likely in Portugal.