Portugal’s, property sales volume was up by 30% in the first half of the year, leading pundits to bet that 2017 will be the hottest property market since 2010.
The increase shows that 80,000 homes have been shifted in six months., according to Luís Lima, the president of the Association of Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies (APEMIP).
The ‘No to oil drilling in Portugal!’ campaign on Saturday 12th August, took over much of Odeceixe beach on the western Algarve’s border with the Alentejo where around 1,000 people from 40 countries formed a large-scale human message on the sand.
The demonstration was part of larger campaign to stop plans for off-shore oil drilling in Portugal, especially in those southern areas dependent on tourism.
Party leader, the former Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, returns for the eighth time to the 'Festa do Pontal' on Sunday, August 13th, when the Social Democrats take over the pedestrian promenade in Quarteira for their annual bash.
With less than two months to go before the local elections, the party is taking place deep inside the Algarve's socialist territory where in 2013, the Social Democrats won only five of the region's 16 councils, with the Socialist Party winning the rest, except Silves which went to the CDU under Rosa Palma.
MEO's may have been bought by the billionaire businessman Patrick Drahi, but the company is still up to its old tricks, as witnesses in an August promotional campaign that is totally illegal.
MEO is offering Internet capacity for free to customers during August, but obliges them to pay for the service after that date if they do not phone a special number hidden at the end of an unsolicited SMS message.
Oliver Peter Brüggert, or simply ‘Peter Oliver’, has absconded with €17,000 in takings from the Arrifana Sunset Festival, leaving the organisers unable to pay its suppliers and musicians.
The German, who worked with the festival’s finances for the past six years, has a history of theft and deception with a string of women claiming to have been lured by his charms, only to find themselves without a partner and significantly out of pocket.
The Algarve’s hotels are less crowded with British holidaymakers this summer due to the fall of the value of sterling against the euro.
This 15% drop in the pound’s value, after a slim majority of the UK’s voters decided that ‘enough was enough’ and to leave the European Union, has been noticed in the Algarve as in July alone, hotels registered 56,000 fewer British tourists than a year earlier.
Portugal’s Minister for Internal Administration Constança Urbano de Sousa, has been forced to ask for help from European neighbours as the country continues to suffer from hundreds of fires raging across the central zone.
Extra air support, one Canadair aircraft and two 'Air Tractors' plus ground support teams, have been sent from Madrid to help tackle the most intense period of fires the country has ever experienced. Other countries are busy with fires of their own and, in Greece's case, is helping out in Albania.
Portugal’s much-vaunted Golden Visa programme is failing to serve those whom it wishes to attract, with delays at the Foreign and Borders Service due to staff shortages and redeployment of key staff to Lisbon airport.
Investors pay €500,000 upwards for qualifying properties but are having to wait at least three months for the first meeting with SEF staff in Lisbon and are not allowed to arrange appointments in areas outside the one in which they are buying their property.
