Portuguese Real Estate Sectors Powers On as 500 Homes Were Sold Per Day

21 January 2019

According to APEMIP, 180,000 homes sold in Portugal last year, up by 25,000 compared to 2017. Analysts also expected sales to remain strong in 2019.

Housing sales in Portugal are at least a 10-year high. Between January and December about 180,000 homes, 25,000 more than in the previous year, were sold in Portugal, a rate of about 500 houses per day, according to the Portuguese Association of Realtors and Real Estate Agents (APEMIP), the Diário de Notícias reported Monday.

APEMIP also stated that the figure represents an increase of 125% since 2014.

The National Statistical Institute (INE) is only expected to publish its official figures in March. However, sales in the last quarter of the year, the only one for which the figures are still missing, seem to have been largely similar to the rest of the year.

Foreigners, especially Brazilians and the French, were still the largest buyers, continuing a trend established in 2012, the year of the creation of the golden visa program. According to APEMIP, they will have accounted for 20% of the sales of homes last year, or 35,000 homes.

Although these figures are high, real estate companies expect the trend to continue through 2019.

Luis Lima, the president of APEMIP, says that “the real estate market continues to have all the necessary conditions for continued growth, and this is what we believe will happen, even if there is a slight slowdown, which would also be natural.”

Lima noted, however, that it is an election year, and this may cause “apprehension in the market, which may have some repercussions. However, if everything remains as is and as long as no measures are taken that could negatively influence the sector’s good momentum, I believe that growth will continue on this path.”

Original Story: Economia Online

Translation: Richard Turner