Portugal property investment visas dominated by Chinese investors

[Nicholas Wallwork]

There is no doubt that over the last few years we have seen a massive increase in the amount of money invested in European property markets by Chinese investors. This fact has been confirmed by the Portuguese authorities with almost 80% of Portuguese property investment visas going to Chinese investors. A total of 318 visas [...]

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[Veronica]

Cyprus has been wooing the Chinese for some time with mimimun investment being €300k to get their visas. However some developers have become very greedy and inflated the prices of much less expensive properties to sell them to the Chinese. However the Chinese are not stupid and realised what was going on so the flood of Chinese coming to view properties has slowed to a trickle so as usual the developers have shot themselves in the foot.
There are now a lot of properties which were being finished in a hurry to cater for the Chinese market which will probably remain empty until the developers come their senses and reduce the prices to attract a wider market. Knowing Cypriot developers I can't see that happening for a long time.

 

[Nicholas Wallwork]

Many people seem to think that waving a property investment visa in the air will see serious investors ignore market trends, market values and pay over the odds for properties. Your comments seem to indicate that some developers are spoiling the market for everybody - why, this is just crazy.

 

[Veronica]

The problem is that Cypriot mentality is think of today, tomorrow will take care of itself. As a result they never consider the long term ramifications of their actions.
If business is bad they put their prices up and end up losing more customers instead of dropping prices to encourage trade. This is actually quite typical of most Mediterranean countries.

 

[Moccas]

I am absolutely happy for Portugal and their foreign visa investors!
Seeing the Chinese and others shopping property in Lisbon and in the Algarve is a stimulus for the whole trade. Property prices are still falling, but I think Portugal reached the price bottom already. Bank finance is simply not available, so cash demands the sales and prices. There is nothing like that "Visa" price inflation as the red tape until completion for this type of buyer is putting quite a lot of vendors off. It also seems that land with building permission for developers is becoming a favourable item again. Again, I happy for Portugal and the Portuguese

 

[djsmachado]

I strongly disagree with some of the comments above. Chinese have been investing seriously in Portugal Real Estate market specially because they can also get the residence permit card. However their investments have been selective in new properties and always in the best locations. Those properties have been seeing the price rise more than 20% on the past 6 month and I am sure that with the amount of potential investors this luxury apartments will end up being and extremely good investment.

 

[totallyproperty]

Do you think that the short-term benefits, i.e. more support for property markets, associated with the residency visas will be picked up by the long-term recovery in the Portuguese, Spanish and Cypriot property markets?

 

[djsmachado]

I believe that situation in Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Malta are not exactly the same as Portugal. Portugal economy is quite strong if we see the overall macroeconomics results from last 200 years, when I say is a strong economy is because it does not have a big drop or either a big increase.

If you check the structure of Portuguese economy you will understand that most of the income generated comes from Touristic Activities and Construction Business. Developments have been driving economy during the last 50 years and this strongly affects the performance of the country.

Having new markets of potential investors in Real Estate coming in and restoring the confidence of Construction Industry will definitely bring Portuguese economy up.
The markets that this Golden Visa program is bringing on touristic level are completely out of usual markets of tourism for Portugal. I mean most of incoming traffic for Portugal comes from North Europe. This program is bring Asian, African and South American investments and consequently tourists.

 

[Veronica]

How can you claim that Portugals' economy is strong when it has had to have bail outs from the EU and this recent report suggests that Portugal is still a long way from having a strong economy.


Court ruling threatens to delay Portugal’s bailout exit - FT.com

 

[djsmachado]

Portugal to surpass this crisis need to be a stronger economy than most of economies in Europe. Lets start by the 1st problem all countries have public debt and Portugal is not an exception, we pay the interest rates on our debt with interest over 5%. That's basically the price of the money for Portuguese which we are paying for. Other European economies pay close to 0% interest rate for their debts. Please explain me in this kind of disadvantage if any weak economy would survive. Check macroeconomics data to see how is it possible to keep the GDP at same level with higher taxes and 5 point interest rates higher than other countries in the same open economy!