Spain 
Italy 
Greece 
Campolide Seeks Limits to Local Accommodations
31 October 2018
The price per square meter in Campolide went up by 700 euros in just one year. The chairman of the parish council fears that the new law limiting local accommodation in the historic centre will further increase prices.
The fever in the real estate market took a ride on the #24 electric tram. The euphoria in the market, which began in Chiado, has already arrived in Campolide. In an area that was considered a poor relation of the capital’s wealthiest parishes, housing prices are still below the average for Lisbon as a whole. However, in the second quarter of 2018, along with Novas Avenidas, Campolide recorded the highest appreciation: 37%.
Each square meter in the parish bordering Campo de Ourique and Santo António, two of the most expensive in the country, already costs 2,633 euros, according to data published yesterday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). In the same period of 2017, each square meter in Campolide cost just 1,922 euros. The median in the municipality increased by 23% to 2,753 euros.
The rapid price rise did not catch André Couto by surprise. The head of the parish council says that “the council has been warning about this for a long time.” The influx of money, despite having cleaned up the area, is causing many of the former residents to leave the parish because they cannot afford the new prices.
“The extensive rehabilitation of the public space in recent years has made the parish more attractive and helps to explain the rising prices.” Today, Campolide is more beautiful than many of the nearby parishes, but this also has to do with the saturation of the city centre. The city’s next main area, where we are, has become more attractive to investors and I think that from now on it will get worse,” the mayor told DN/Dinheiro Vivo.
Mr Couto’s fears are linked to measures that the council has taken in response to the growing pressure of tourism in Madragoa, Castelo, Alfama, Mouraria and Bairro Alto. “With new local accommodations suspended in these neighbourhoods, Campolide will suffer even more price increases. We are in favour of the containment, but we do not think it should be limited to the historic city centre, it should be spread throughout the city and include our parish. Campolide is the area in Lisbon with the most hotel beds, which for public space management, already makes our task very difficult,” adds the mayor.
Mayor Couto does not believe that Lisbon’s real estate market is in the throes of a “bubble,” even when confronted with the current level of housing prices in the capital.
The parish of Santo António is still the most expensive in the country. There, in the streets around Avenida da Liberdade, a one hundred square meter flat will not go for less than 410,000 euros, an increase of 80,000 euros, or €800 per square meter in one year. As you go up towards Avenidas Novas, the price of houses also goes up. The current average is 3,338 euros per square meter, 905 euros higher than in the same period of 2017. In the parish of Estrela, prices soared by 34% to 3,472 euros, up 883 euros since the middle of 2017.
Porto breaks records
Like the ocean seen from Foz, the increase in house prices in Porto seems to have no end. In the quarter ending in June, the value of the square meter increased 24.7% in the municipality as a whole, more than anywhere else in the country. According to the INE, the median price in Porto reached 1,460 euros per square meter. In mid-2017 it was just 1,100 euros.
The figures unveiled yesterday once placed the area of downtown Porto, including the Union of Parishes of Cedofeita, Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau and Vitória, at the top of the ranking of price increases. The value of the square meter in the historic centre skyrocketed 43.7%, reaching 1,777 euros. In the first quarter prices in that area rose by more than 45%. At the beginning of 2017, it was still possible to buy a 100-square-meter house downtown or less than one hundred thousand euros; today, the same property would cost nearly 180,000 euros.
Regardless, the union of parishes in the historic centre is still far from being the most expensive in Porto. That title is still held by the Union of Parishes of Aldoar, Foz do Douro and Nevogilde. Here, the price increase was on the order of 20% for the second consecutive quarter. The median price is already around 2,142 euros per square meter. People who know the area guarantee that the reality goes far beyond the INE’s figures.
“The current price of the square meter of new houses in the Foz area, at least in the first line of the sea, is around six thousand euros,” says Maria Ramos Pinto, commercial director of real estate for Pedro Ramos Pinto, which has been operating in the Foz area for two decades. A quick look at the agencies catalogue leaves little room for doubt. A 51-m2 flat in the parish costs nearly 300,000 euros.
Ms Pinto explained that, in addition to the increase in demand by foreigners, mostly Brazilians, there are a considerable number of new buildings under construction in that area, unlike in the historic centre, where there is only room for rehabilitation. “There are at least six projects just on Rua de Gondarém, which is a lot for a city the size of Porto.”
Pedro Ramos Pinto’s commercial director believes that the highest prices, around six thousand euros per square meter, will tend to stagnate in the coming months. However, more and more areas of the parish will reach that price level. “The search in this area is spreading to the river bank, and there we are starting to see prices at around five thousand euros per square meter. A property with the same characteristics costs half as much in Vila Nova de Gaia.”
Original Story: Diário de Notícias – Ana Sanlez
Photo: Orlando Almeida / Global Imagens
Translation: Richard Turner