Portugal and Spain are two neighboring country who fight for wealthy Chinese buyers. They, as well as citizens of other non-EU countries, may obtain a residence permit in Spain and Portugal when buying a property priced at more than €500,000. Spain has increased the minimum amount to half a million euro only recently, while Portugal has already achieved considerable success.
Thanks to amendments to the law granting a residence permit in Portugal when buying expensive housing, since the beginning of 2013 the country has attracted more than €150 million, in exchange to 226 residence permits with 168 of them issued to citizens of the PRC. The Chinese prefer new housing with highquality architecture.
For wealthy Chinese, the obtaining of residence permits in exchange for the purchase of real estate is a great opportunity to get a safety net in the event of instability in the communist country. In addition, Portugal residence permit allows unlimited travel to the countries of the Schengen agreement. Russians who buy real estate in Portugal are guided by the same reasons, but the number of investors from Russia is not that big. Among other countries whose citizens seek to obtain Portugal residence permit are Brazil (Portuguese is an official language there) , Angola, South Africa, states of Middle East.
It looks like dark days ended for the Portuguese real estate market. According to representatives of one of the real estate agencies of Portugal, sales increased by 80% compared with the last year, and the vast majority of transactions are under the "golden visa" program.
For the authorities, the introduction of the "golden visa" is not just a way to support the construction industry. It is also a way to attract wealthy people who can afford to spend more than half a million euro for real estate. Such people will invest in other sectors of economy, create business or spend money they earned in their native land.
What else and for citizens of which countries Portugal offers?
First, low taxes attract residents of Scandinavian countries and France, where the government significantly increased taxes. In Portugal, the rate of income tax for non-residents is 23% if money are earned inside of country, and 0% if abroad.
Second, real estate in Lisbon , as well as in the nearby resort towns of Cascais and Estoril is traditionally popular among Britons who buy there second homes.
However, the internal and domestic markets are poles apart. It's another proof that insightful authorities of Portugal decided to issue residence permits for the purchase of real estate just in time: otherwise the market would be too vulnerable). Even despite the fact that banks are trying to quickly sell seized apartments by providing mortgage loans in the amount of 100% of value, the internal market is not growing.
As for resort places, where the real estate market was growing before crisis, the situation is deplorable. In Algravi (including Faro), which is in the south of the country, as well as on the Silver Coast (Costa da Prata), stretching from Lisbon to Porto, there are tens of thousands of houses purchased during 20 pre-crisis years. The owners of many of them are no longer able to pay the mortgage and spend money for upkeep, and therefore they dream to get rid of such property. In order to pay their loans, they sell their real estate at low prices, often to the bad. So that developers in the primary market can not sell the property at market value.
Text: based on aplaceinthesun.com and ee24.com