Lisbon rents fall for second quarter running

Despite Lisbon continuing to be one of the most expensive cities to live in Europe, housing rents fell for the second quarter running by 2.2%.

The average price per square metre for rented accommodation stood at €19, a high price that is difficult to pay for many families.

According to a study from Confidencial Imobiliário released on Thursday, rents on new contracts in Lisbon fell 2.2% in the last quarter of 2023, confirming a downward trend registered in the previous quarter.

Nevertheless, rents continue to be higher than they were in 2022 and in the first two quarters of 2023 – 8.7% more expensive.

António Machado, the General-Secretary of the Lisbon Tenants Association told SIC Notícas: “This news that rents have gone down by 2% obviously displays an extremely low reduction compared to the high costs of rents reached prior to this, which are beyond the reach of most families”.

The association regrets that housing has not been a central theme for the pre-election campaign – Portugal goes to the polls on March 10 – stressing that it was a critical situation for many Portuguese.

“The (rental) contracts are all very short term, many aren’t renewable, the renters end up being like a kind of tourist, always moving house. Apart from rents being very high, people end up having to share houses, and housing is often overcrowded with bad living conditions”, he added.

The same study revealed that rents were continuing to go up in Porto, (by less it is true) but with an upward trend continuing from October through December and contracts up 0.9% on average towards the end of 2023. However, in Q2 rents had gone up by 3.2%.

The official data on rent prices for Q4 – the last quarter of the financial year — will only be released in March.