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Not a professional farm but for our own food (as vegetarians); Spain first and now Portugal. Land is cheap and plentiful, a lot of stuff grows multiple times pe

Not a professional farm but for our own food (as vegetarians); Spain first and now Portugal. Land is cheap and plentiful, a lot of stuff grows multiple times per year. Water is an issue which is why we moved to a wet part of Portugal. We grow all our fruit and veg etc and eggs organically. It would not be very hard or expensive to scale it up somewhat; my neighbours all make enough to live with larger plots of land. No idea how to do it on a large scale. Also I am still a software engineer but working less hours these days.

recvonline 4y ago
Are you speaking the language? And was it hard to create or be part of the local community?
- tluyben2 4y ago
  I am bad at natural languages, but I am Dutch so my television when I was young was English, German, French, Flemish and bad bad Dutch tv. So I have some advantage but communicating with a few words, English and hands and feet works fine with the locals. My wife learns languages very fast (she is also dutch but she learned Mandarin when we were working in china and was good with the locals when we left) so that helps, but the people mostly speak English and insist on speaking English to practice; these are 20-50 y/o Spanish, Portuguese and expats. It took about 2 years to be an integral part of the community in spain; Portugal took a few months and we don’t speak Portuguese yet because everyone understands English and with Spanish Portuguese is not hard to understand. But all communications are in English really.
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    Without doxing yourself what region of Portugal are you in at the moment? Also if you have children, how are you finding the local education sys?
    - tluyben2 4y ago
      We moved more north for the rain; east of Porto. No children (by choice) so cannot say anything about that.
ArtWomb 4y ago
>>> Portugal. Land is cheap and plentiful Really interesting! Can you provide ballpark as to prices. I know 3-4 families from NYC area that moved to Portugal recently. If you wish to buy a vineyard here, in a choice location, you'll be priced out at like $50k per acre. If you can even find a plot of tillable land available that covers 50+ acres. Alternately, Amazon is subletting 10M of warehouse space in NJ, so you could grow grapes indoors? CERN / Swiss Alps / French Burgundy region also looks like it has potential for those seeking the "Château de Guédelon" medieval lifestyle ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A9delon_Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A9delon_Castle
- Iv 4y ago
  French here in the process of buying a house in Isère. The cheapest regions in France are probably in the center, in Seine et Loire I saw many offers for very cheap houses. Be careful about buying medieval ruins: they can be cheap but they come with a VERY heavy regulatory framework. You have almost no freedom in how you will rebuild something that is classified as a historical monument and the cost of work and maintenance will be several times the buying cost there.
alx__ 4y ago
I loved Lisbon and have contemplated moving to Portugal. Don't know how challenging it is for an American to migrate there. Have romantic notions of a garden+bakery. :)
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  Portugal is a really nice country but I don't know how sustainable is to have this dual tax system for nationals and foreigners. Nationals are being screwed by this, and I know for sure that If I was Portuguese I'll be pretty angry.
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    You mean the NHR? That’s only for 10 years though. Many countries have a similar system (including Spain [0]), either for personal or your company or both. [0] https://www.europeantax.blog/post/102h41p/thinking-of-moving-to-spain-expect-a-fantastic-climate-and-a-special-income-tax https://www.europeantax.blog/post/102h41p/thinking-of-moving...
    - bogomipz 4y ago
      The last sentence states: >"But let's not get ahead of ourselves, as the draft bill still has to pass through Congress unscathed." Do you know if this draft bill ended up passing? I wasn't able to find much about it's current status.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  There is a golden visa ; it has become somewhat stricter basically you can buy a house/property over a certain value (think 350k euros) and that gets you a visa. Sell it after x years when you get a passport.
uxcolumbo 4y ago
This sounds great. What resources would you recommend for people looking to move to the Porto region. And what sort of budget should one have?
TheMerovingian 4y ago
I've been following a number of folks who also moved to Portugal with the intent of buying an old plot of land and refurbishing it into a working farm for themselves [0]. As much as it is fun to imagine living this lifestyle, it is very hard work. I'd reiterate the water issue in Portugal; it can rain for a month, but it can also be dry for many more months. A water well or cistern is recommended. [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/MAKEDOGROW https://www.youtube.com/c/MAKEDOGROW

recvonline 4y ago

Are you speaking the language? And was it hard to create or be part of the local community?

tluyben2 4y ago
I am bad at natural languages, but I am Dutch so my television when I was young was English, German, French, Flemish and bad bad Dutch tv. So I have some advantage but communicating with a few words, English and hands and feet works fine with the locals. My wife learns languages very fast (she is also dutch but she learned Mandarin when we were working in china and was good with the locals when we left) so that helps, but the people mostly speak English and insist on speaking English to practice; these are 20-50 y/o Spanish, Portuguese and expats. It took about 2 years to be an integral part of the community in spain; Portugal took a few months and we don’t speak Portuguese yet because everyone understands English and with Spanish Portuguese is not hard to understand. But all communications are in English really.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Without doxing yourself what region of Portugal are you in at the moment? Also if you have children, how are you finding the local education sys?
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    We moved more north for the rain; east of Porto. No children (by choice) so cannot say anything about that.

ArtWomb 4y ago

>>> Portugal. Land is cheap and plentiful Really interesting! Can you provide ballpark as to prices. I know 3-4 families from NYC area that moved to Portugal recently. If you wish to buy a vineyard here, in a choice location, you'll be priced out at like $50k per acre. If you can even find a plot of tillable land available that covers 50+ acres. Alternately, Amazon is subletting 10M of warehouse space in NJ, so you could grow grapes indoors? CERN / Swiss Alps / French Burgundy region also looks like it has potential for those seeking the "Château de Guédelon" medieval lifestyle ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A9delon_Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A9delon_Castle

Iv 4y ago
French here in the process of buying a house in Isère. The cheapest regions in France are probably in the center, in Seine et Loire I saw many offers for very cheap houses. Be careful about buying medieval ruins: they can be cheap but they come with a VERY heavy regulatory framework. You have almost no freedom in how you will rebuild something that is classified as a historical monument and the cost of work and maintenance will be several times the buying cost there.

alx__ 4y ago

I loved Lisbon and have contemplated moving to Portugal. Don't know how challenging it is for an American to migrate there. Have romantic notions of a garden+bakery. :)

spaniard89277 4y ago
Portugal is a really nice country but I don't know how sustainable is to have this dual tax system for nationals and foreigners. Nationals are being screwed by this, and I know for sure that If I was Portuguese I'll be pretty angry.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  You mean the NHR? That’s only for 10 years though. Many countries have a similar system (including Spain [0]), either for personal or your company or both. [0] https://www.europeantax.blog/post/102h41p/thinking-of-moving-to-spain-expect-a-fantastic-climate-and-a-special-income-tax https://www.europeantax.blog/post/102h41p/thinking-of-moving...
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    The last sentence states: >"But let's not get ahead of ourselves, as the draft bill still has to pass through Congress unscathed." Do you know if this draft bill ended up passing? I wasn't able to find much about it's current status.
tluyben2 4y ago
There is a golden visa ; it has become somewhat stricter basically you can buy a house/property over a certain value (think 350k euros) and that gets you a visa. Sell it after x years when you get a passport.

uxcolumbo 4y ago

This sounds great. What resources would you recommend for people looking to move to the Porto region. And what sort of budget should one have?

TheMerovingian 4y ago

I've been following a number of folks who also moved to Portugal with the intent of buying an old plot of land and refurbishing it into a working farm for themselves [0]. As much as it is fun to imagine living this lifestyle, it is very hard work. I'd reiterate the water issue in Portugal; it can rain for a month, but it can also be dry for many more months. A water well or cistern is recommended. [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/MAKEDOGROW https://www.youtube.com/c/MAKEDOGROW