The weight of foreign investment in the national real estate market is increasing. Non-resident citizens are not only buying more houses, but paying more for them too.
Last year, foreigners were responsible for the purchase of 8.2% of total property sold in Portugal, paying an average of over 171,000 euros for each property, 58% more than the average value of real estate transactions in the country (around 108,000 euros).
According to data released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 242,000 properties were sold in Portugal last year, for a total transaction value that exceeded 26 billion euros. Nearly 20,000 of these properties were purchased by non-residents, for a total value of 3.4 billion euros, equivalent to 8.2% of total properties traded and 13% of total sales in that period.
The French were the ones who bought the most properties in the country (19.7% of the total foreign buyers), followed by residents of the United Kingdom (16.9%), and then the Brazilians (8.3%).
However, the highest average value (297.200 euros) of properties sold was to the Chinese, which were likely to spend almost twice as much as a Portuguese buyer. In practice, citizens residing in China accounted for only 5.1% of real estate transactions of foreigners, but were the ones that invested the most in per capita terms.
The number of properties sold to non-residents at a value of 500,000 euros or higher has also continued to increase, representing 7.2% of the number of properties acquired by foreigners. A scenario that continues to be driven largely by the golden visa program.
“It was essentially from 2013 onwards that the number and value of properties acquired by non-residents with a value of 500,000 euros or more increased in Portugal, more than doubling in number and almost doubling in value compared to 2012.
In 2014, this growth was accentuated, mainly in value, making these properties represent almost half of the total value of properties acquired by non-residents in that year. It should be noted that it was during these years that the residence permits in Portugal for investment activities - ARI, commonly referred to as golden visas, were effectively initiated, ” the report states.
