5 ms·

I'm sure there are plenty of people who can work remotely who would love to live in a place like this, if it were either turnkey or at least if there were some

by rdl 8y ago

I'm sure there are plenty of people who can work remotely who would love to live in a place like this, if it were either turnkey or at least if there were some collective action organization. Makes even more sense in Portugal, though -- you could live in a place for 182 days/yr, after putting 350k euros investment into it, with a grant of portugese citizenship. I'm sure there are similar villages/properties in rural areas too.

reidrac 8y ago
It may be tricky to do remote work from one of these places. In Spain, rural areas may not have broadband at all. You may have phone line, but the quality is so bad that not even ASDL is usable.
- ez7r6i 8y ago
  Rural areas of Spain usually have decent 4G service. Good luck getting hired for remote work in Spain, though. Edit for the guys below: obviously I meant working for a Spanish company.
  - atomical 8y ago
    I think parent comment was referring to foreigners buying a place and working remotely.
    - rdl 8y ago
      Yeah. I am planning to get Portuguese residency through property purchase along with some friends, although we might not go for rural. Only need to spend 14 days/yr there, though. It is a 350-500k EUR investment. If you rent the property out you should be able to cover the debt service. (Obviously it exposes you to Portuguese RE risk, as well as EUR currency risk, and requires good credit, but a 500k piece of property is a lower bar than, say, a 150k fee, and a Portuguese passport is a whole lot better than most citizenship by investment programs.) I’d probably spend 2-3 months/yr in Portugal if I had a nice small house or apartment somewhere. It is a good country.
      - ALittleLight 8y ago
        How do you plan to rent the property out? Won't you need a property manager of some kind?
        rdl 8y ago
        Yes. If it is in Lisbon we will probably do 4-8 units in a building with a dedicated concierge/Airbnb manager shared across them. Otherwise, there are services which manage like that. Option C is a rural property and finding a long term farmer. Maybe find someone who is already farming his own land, buy it and lease back at the long term rate. Need to own the property for at least 5-7 years, but I wouldn’t be against owning Ag land indefinitely.
      - vram22 8y ago
        >If you rent the property out you should be able to cover the debt service. (Obviously it exposes you to Portuguese RE risk, as well as EUR currency risk, and requires good credit Does that mean you are planning to get a loan to finance the purchase of the property?
        kgwgk 8y ago
        Good question. Maybe the plan is to mortgage other properties elsewhere where they actually live to finance (at least in part) the operation?
        rdl 8y ago
        You can get ~50% mortgages I believe, internationally, particularly if you have other assets to secure it with (some banks I work with will do crypto lending, at least for BTC)
      - bogomipz 8y ago
        Might you have sone links or literature on this program? Someone above mentioned it required you to be there for 180 days a year. I'd be interested in learning more. Also what is the 150K fee alternative you mentioned?
  - reidrac 8y ago
    It would be matter of not working for a Spanish company. It makes taxes a bit more complicated though. (Ironically, I did some remote work for a Spanish company when I was living in the UK)
  - misterhtmlcss 8y ago
    Why do you say that? Remote is remote, is I'm hiring remote, why would I care if the person is in Spain, Portugal or anywhere else? I'm sure you have context behind your comment and it would be great if you shared it.
    - reidrac 8y ago
      I think the comment was referring to work remotely for a Spanish company. In Spain, remote work culture is almost nonexistent.
    - GordonS 8y ago
      At least for US companies, I do see a lot of remote positions that specify that candidates must be US based. Not sure why...
      - LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
        Timezone alignment. General cultural missunderstandings. People got burned by outsourcing, the original remote work.
      - chaboud 8y ago
        Taxes. Travel. Time zone.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      Taxes and compliance requirements.
    - trickstra 8y ago
      many companies, especially in US, misuse the term "remote" to mean "remote but only in US" or "remote but at least 2 days per week in office". They just want to ride the hype wave without actually changing anything
- christkv 8y ago
  Asturias in Spain has quite a lot of villages with 100/100 mb fiber due to a private public partnership. Our house in the little hamlet proaza has had that for ten years already.
- rujuladanh 8y ago
  Not at all. One does not need to go to a ghost village to to what OP says, and many towns in Europa have even fiber.
- mromanuk 8y ago
  you should wait for low latency, high speed satellite internet.
atomical 8y ago
There may be tax breaks available as well. The Azores are awesome for remote work. Faial has fiber optic lines, friendly people, temperate climate, beautiful landscape, and hiking. https://www.azoresproperties.com/urban-renovation-tax-breaks-subsidies-and-other-benefits-for-the-azores/ https://www.azoresproperties.com/urban-renovation-tax-breaks...
libertine 8y ago
The great thing about Portugal is that it's a rather small country, so even if you live in the interior, you can quickly get to a large city, or even the coast. As a portuguese I can tell you that Portugal is an amazing place to live if you have an above the average income.
- somberi 8y ago
  May I ask what you would consider as above-average income.
  - libertine 8y ago
    If your income is 1500€+/month (after taxes) you can have a pretty good life.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"you could live in a place for 182 days/yr, after putting 350k euros investment into it, with a grant of portugese citizenship" Could you elaborate on this? Is there a name for this program? Might you have a link or some further reading?
chicob 8y ago
That always seems a good idea for those not living in the interior. It is an urban myth to imagine one can easily move to the interior and then, by means of instantaneous willpower, cope with the most ruthless solitude. I've heard my share of stories about city people moving to the countryside to start living off their organic orchard. But when we stop dreaming and look around, people who were born there are going away or dying of old age in ever smaller villages. Alentejo still has the highest suicide rate. I work in Alentejo as a farmer, and I recently moved from Lisbon to Beja. Beja is the capital of Portugal's largest district. Before I came here, I knew beforehand the kind of obstacles my family would face. Close to where I work, less than 10 miles from Beja, the local school was converted to a multi-purpose building, because there are not enough children living there. Infrastructure is still bad: on the farm, on windy days I have poor to no reception on the best available operator, and the Internet connection quality drops considerably around 5 pm; power shortages are frequent, which is a major problem for those with irrigation needs; the roads are in miserable condition; fuel is also more expensive; the central hospital still does not have an MRI machine. And I say this having in mind all of those that, each day, fight for bringing to south Alentejo the investment it desperately needs. I fight for that too. In terms of agriculture there have been major changes, but there is still a lot to do. Meanwhile, across the country, postal services, banks and public schools are shutting down. In the past, several ideas have been put forth to combat abandonment, but I don't think any of those ideas are working. The abandonment of old villages is not fought by artificially populating them with people coming from large urban areas. Until proven wrong, I still believe that investment in fundamental infrastructure is what attracts people: energy, water, transportation and communications. Selling whole villages to the rich as a solution for this problem is a gimmick, and an insult in my opinion.
- yellowapple 8y ago
  > It is an urban myth to imagine one can easily move to the interior and then, by means of instantaneous willpower, cope with the most ruthless solitude Urban myth, sure, but to me that sounds like heaven.
m-i-l 8y ago
There has been at least one abandoned Portuguese village turned into an apparently successful eco-tourism destination: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2010/jan/31/algarve-village-reborn https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2010/jan/31/algarve-villa... .
NonEUCitizen 8y ago
You don't get citizenship. You get residency with a path to citizenship. https://www.henleyglobal.com/residence-portugal-golden-residence-program/ https://www.henleyglobal.com/residence-portugal-golden-resid...
markdown 8y ago
> I'm sure there are plenty of people who can work remotely who would love to live in a place like this, if it were either turnkey or at least if there were some collective action organization. http://www.tribewanted.com/ http://www.tribewanted.com/

by rdl 8y ago

reidrac 8y ago

It may be tricky to do remote work from one of these places. In Spain, rural areas may not have broadband at all. You may have phone line, but the quality is so bad that not even ASDL is usable.

ez7r6i 8y ago
Rural areas of Spain usually have decent 4G service. Good luck getting hired for remote work in Spain, though. Edit for the guys below: obviously I meant working for a Spanish company.
- atomical 8y ago
  I think parent comment was referring to foreigners buying a place and working remotely.
  - rdl 8y ago
    Yeah. I am planning to get Portuguese residency through property purchase along with some friends, although we might not go for rural. Only need to spend 14 days/yr there, though. It is a 350-500k EUR investment. If you rent the property out you should be able to cover the debt service. (Obviously it exposes you to Portuguese RE risk, as well as EUR currency risk, and requires good credit, but a 500k piece of property is a lower bar than, say, a 150k fee, and a Portuguese passport is a whole lot better than most citizenship by investment programs.) I’d probably spend 2-3 months/yr in Portugal if I had a nice small house or apartment somewhere. It is a good country.
    - ALittleLight 8y ago
      How do you plan to rent the property out? Won't you need a property manager of some kind?
      - rdl 8y ago
        Yes. If it is in Lisbon we will probably do 4-8 units in a building with a dedicated concierge/Airbnb manager shared across them. Otherwise, there are services which manage like that. Option C is a rural property and finding a long term farmer. Maybe find someone who is already farming his own land, buy it and lease back at the long term rate. Need to own the property for at least 5-7 years, but I wouldn’t be against owning Ag land indefinitely.
    - vram22 8y ago
      >If you rent the property out you should be able to cover the debt service. (Obviously it exposes you to Portuguese RE risk, as well as EUR currency risk, and requires good credit Does that mean you are planning to get a loan to finance the purchase of the property?
      - kgwgk 8y ago
        Good question. Maybe the plan is to mortgage other properties elsewhere where they actually live to finance (at least in part) the operation?
        rdl 8y ago
        You can get ~50% mortgages I believe, internationally, particularly if you have other assets to secure it with (some banks I work with will do crypto lending, at least for BTC)
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      Might you have sone links or literature on this program? Someone above mentioned it required you to be there for 180 days a year. I'd be interested in learning more. Also what is the 150K fee alternative you mentioned?
- reidrac 8y ago
  It would be matter of not working for a Spanish company. It makes taxes a bit more complicated though. (Ironically, I did some remote work for a Spanish company when I was living in the UK)
- misterhtmlcss 8y ago
  Why do you say that? Remote is remote, is I'm hiring remote, why would I care if the person is in Spain, Portugal or anywhere else? I'm sure you have context behind your comment and it would be great if you shared it.
  - reidrac 8y ago
    I think the comment was referring to work remotely for a Spanish company. In Spain, remote work culture is almost nonexistent.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    At least for US companies, I do see a lot of remote positions that specify that candidates must be US based. Not sure why...
    - LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
      Timezone alignment. General cultural missunderstandings. People got burned by outsourcing, the original remote work.
    - chaboud 8y ago
      Taxes. Travel. Time zone.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Taxes and compliance requirements.
  - trickstra 8y ago
    many companies, especially in US, misuse the term "remote" to mean "remote but only in US" or "remote but at least 2 days per week in office". They just want to ride the hype wave without actually changing anything
christkv 8y ago
Asturias in Spain has quite a lot of villages with 100/100 mb fiber due to a private public partnership. Our house in the little hamlet proaza has had that for ten years already.
rujuladanh 8y ago
Not at all. One does not need to go to a ghost village to to what OP says, and many towns in Europa have even fiber.
mromanuk 8y ago
you should wait for low latency, high speed satellite internet.

atomical 8y ago

There may be tax breaks available as well. The Azores are awesome for remote work. Faial has fiber optic lines, friendly people, temperate climate, beautiful landscape, and hiking. https://www.azoresproperties.com/urban-renovation-tax-breaks-subsidies-and-other-benefits-for-the-azores/ https://www.azoresproperties.com/urban-renovation-tax-breaks...

libertine 8y ago

The great thing about Portugal is that it's a rather small country, so even if you live in the interior, you can quickly get to a large city, or even the coast. As a portuguese I can tell you that Portugal is an amazing place to live if you have an above the average income.

somberi 8y ago
May I ask what you would consider as above-average income.
- libertine 8y ago
  If your income is 1500€+/month (after taxes) you can have a pretty good life.

bogomipz 8y ago

>"you could live in a place for 182 days/yr, after putting 350k euros investment into it, with a grant of portugese citizenship" Could you elaborate on this? Is there a name for this program? Might you have a link or some further reading?

chicob 8y ago

That always seems a good idea for those not living in the interior. It is an urban myth to imagine one can easily move to the interior and then, by means of instantaneous willpower, cope with the most ruthless solitude. I've heard my share of stories about city people moving to the countryside to start living off their organic orchard. But when we stop dreaming and look around, people who were born there are going away or dying of old age in ever smaller villages. Alentejo still has the highest suicide rate. I work in Alentejo as a farmer, and I recently moved from Lisbon to Beja. Beja is the capital of Portugal's largest district. Before I came here, I knew beforehand the kind of obstacles my family would face. Close to where I work, less than 10 miles from Beja, the local school was converted to a multi-purpose building, because there are not enough children living there. Infrastructure is still bad: on the farm, on windy days I have poor to no reception on the best available operator, and the Internet connection quality drops considerably around 5 pm; power shortages are frequent, which is a major problem for those with irrigation needs; the roads are in miserable condition; fuel is also more expensive; the central hospital still does not have an MRI machine. And I say this having in mind all of those that, each day, fight for bringing to south Alentejo the investment it desperately needs. I fight for that too. In terms of agriculture there have been major changes, but there is still a lot to do. Meanwhile, across the country, postal services, banks and public schools are shutting down. In the past, several ideas have been put forth to combat abandonment, but I don't think any of those ideas are working. The abandonment of old villages is not fought by artificially populating them with people coming from large urban areas. Until proven wrong, I still believe that investment in fundamental infrastructure is what attracts people: energy, water, transportation and communications. Selling whole villages to the rich as a solution for this problem is a gimmick, and an insult in my opinion.

yellowapple 8y ago
> It is an urban myth to imagine one can easily move to the interior and then, by means of instantaneous willpower, cope with the most ruthless solitude Urban myth, sure, but to me that sounds like heaven.

m-i-l 8y ago

There has been at least one abandoned Portuguese village turned into an apparently successful eco-tourism destination: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2010/jan/31/algarve-village-reborn https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2010/jan/31/algarve-villa... .

NonEUCitizen 8y ago

You don't get citizenship. You get residency with a path to citizenship. https://www.henleyglobal.com/residence-portugal-golden-residence-program/ https://www.henleyglobal.com/residence-portugal-golden-resid...

markdown 8y ago

> I'm sure there are plenty of people who can work remotely who would love to live in a place like this, if it were either turnkey or at least if there were some collective action organization. http://www.tribewanted.com/ http://www.tribewanted.com/