Property for rent in Portugal
Renting a room in Portugal is no longer a trend that is exclusively linked students.
Moving to Portugal is both exciting and daunting, and one of the biggest questions that arises amongst expats is whether to buy or rent property in Portugal.
The Portuguese Government has revealed that it wants to create a pool with currently vacant (or available) properties across the country, that will be turned into affordable rental housing.
The average value of housing rent in Portugal registered a monthly variation of -0.2% in May 2020, a value 0.3 percentage points (p.p.) lower than that registered in April.
In which areas of Lisbon and Porto is it more attractive and/or profitable for owners to put their houses up for rent? A recent study, "Investir no Mercado de Arrendamento" (Investing in the Rental Market), conducted by the real estate consultant JLL, seeks to answer these and other questions.
There will be changes to the extraordinary support for rental payments from July onwards in Portugal, following a proposal presented by the Government and approved in Parliament at the end of May 2020.
The government's proposed law that extends the rental support measures that allow tenants in difficulties to use a loan to pay rent and non-residential tenants to defer rental payments has been approved in Parliament.
House rental prices per square metre (m2) rose 3.1% in April 2020 in Portugal, compared to the same period in the previous month (March).
The Minister of Infrastructure and Housing in Portugal, Pedro Nuno Santos, has revealed that the possibility of extending the period for granting loans by the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU) is being studied.
Rental market prices, namely in Portugal's capital Lisbon, have skyrocketed in the last few years, as has been in the case for the purchase and sale of property in the city.
To extend the supply of houses for rent at affordable prices, mobilising properties belonging to public entities, such as former police barracks, with a conversion into housing which is "easy and fast to execute".
The initiative of António Costa's socialist government to protect the rental market from the impacts of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is a two-faced coin. It determines, on the one hand, that landlords can benefit from interest-free loans to compensate for the lack of rent payments.
