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Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is

Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city. Luckily, we have an older contract that cannot be changed as easily as newer ones. I'm not thrilled by the possibility that our landlord might cancel it some day, however, e.g. for relatives to move in. Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding anything, even though we both work full-time and have salaries above average. It's crazy because all new homes and apartments are "luxury apartments" with insanely high pricing both for buying and renting. They're mostly empty or are (often illegally) rented out as holiday apartments. It's incomprehensible to me how ordinary Portuguese families survive in Lisbon. I guess most of them have inherited property. Quite honestly, apart from the generally increasing gap between rich and the poor, one big problem in societies nowadays is that you can simply get richer and richer just from owning property. For example, if you own three ordinary apartments in Lisbon, you can live in one of them and easily make a good living by renting out the other two as holiday apartments. Because cleaning services, guys who do repairs, etc., are cheap in Portugal, this involves almost no work. Moreover, the net worth of your property will continually increase while you do (almost) nothing. I'm not saying I blame these people, I would do the same if I had the opportunity, but this is a huge structural problem in my opinion.

jseliger 4y ago
We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city Portugal should build more housing, which is a simple, effective solution if the rent is too damn high: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-rent-really-is-too-damn-high/254718/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren.... The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like.
- rcarmo 4y ago
  Nope. Zoning and licensing is in the hands of politicians and construction lobbies vying for the best places to build high-value housing, which is where they get the most return.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    And those folks are voted in and supported by voters who like the fact that their homes quintuple in value. The same goes for any investment properties they buy.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  You can induce demand too. Somehow they'll have to limit that demand.
  - hedora 4y ago
    By definition, functional cities induce demand.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  How this usually works: "I'd do anything for lower housing prices!" Build more housing. "...but I won't do that."
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Meatloaf as an authoritarian city councillor. Seems legit.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Greece has the exact same problem. Rents are skyrocketing and people can't afford to live in their own cities. We're building more housing, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Maybe SF doesn't want to build more housing, but this isn't universal.
    - pyb 4y ago
      It's probably not enough new housing is getting built. People don't even remember what a real large-scale housing spree looks like, because these last happened generations ago. These are transformative events. eg in Athens in the 1950s-1970s : https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191011-the-surprising-story-of-athens-offbeat-architecture https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191011-the-surprising-...
      - somewhereoutth 4y ago
        Indeed - in fact I live in a suburb of Lisbon that was just fields maybe 30 years ago - I am continually astonished at the vast scale of reasonable quality high density housing, all with schools, parks, hospitals etc - there must be hundreds of thousands of people here, a miracle of urban planning. Apparently the Lisbon middle classes fled to these new suburbs to get away from their small damp draughty downtown apartments, which ironically have now become so desirable.
    - TulliusCicero 4y ago
      My experience with most people saying "we are building more housing" is that they drastically overestimate how much housing is getting built, especially relative to yesteryear. If you look at net increase in units YoY, it's usually quite modest even for booming, "in-demand" areas. The other part is that the same things that make it slower to build more housing also make it more expensive, all the various bureaucratic processes.
- JoeJonathan 4y ago
  In what way is building more housing simple? If it were that straightforward, California (which has much more space and money) would have done it, and Californians wouldn't be moving to Portugal.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    The physical building of houses and even raising the capital to buy the materials and labor to build some sort of house capable of housing people, is not anywhere near the choke point in California. Eliminate the zoning and building inspectors and associated enforcement mechanisms and the houses would pop up. I guarantee if California said tomorrow, "build what you like on your land, there will be no permits required!" People would flock to build on the land. Whether the dangers of that outweighs the dangers of homelessness and high price families spend on rent that makes healthcare, healthy food, and education less affordable, is an exercise for the reader.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lthornberry 4y ago
    For many decades, California has had extremely restrictive building regulations, especially in the most desirable areas. That is slowly changing, but the actual building has always been straightforward. It is getting the permission to do so that is complicated, expensive, and often just impossible.
    - JoeJonathan 4y ago
      Agreed on all counts, but that doesn't make the problem of politics any less real. People problems are always the hardest to solve, especially when deeply problematic policies like Prop 13 are written into the state constitution.
      - TulliusCicero 4y ago
        You could say that it's technically simple but politically complex, sure. But what that amounts to is, "we could do it, but collectively don't feel like it."
- capableweb 4y ago
  > The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like. What? Have you ever been in Lisbon? The city is pretty dense as it is. You could mostly just build higher, and that has its limits too, depending on the structure and foundation. Adding more housing outside the core of the city might not be attractive enough. And increasing the density of people also means you need to increase the density of services (public and private) and utilities, which also comes with its own problem.
  - FerociousTimes 4y ago
    Why does everyone want to live in Lisbon? There are other decent metropolises in Portugal and other fun spots around the country not to get crammed in the capital.
    - the_gipsy 4y ago
      That's where job opportunities are, and that's why more housing will increase the opportunities, and then the price of housing...
      - FerociousTimes 4y ago
        For a post-Covid world where remote job opportunities are on the rise, this is becoming less and less of a pressing matter. People can work from nearby towns where housing costs are relatively moderate and just hit the head office in Lisbon one or two times a week. Corporations and people need to adapt to the changing circumstances and to be open to make the necessary adjustments to advance in this world.
        Elinvynia 4y ago
        Not all people can work remotely! This is the exact way that janitors and baristas and everyone servicing those 100k+ a year software engineers is priced out.
        the_gipsy 4y ago
- ephbit 4y ago
  Yeah, Portugal should simply tear down all the old mouldy buildings of Lisbon and replace them with shiny skyscrapers, so each and every Portuguese can have their very own flat in Lisbon. Or if they're crazy enough to want to keep these old buildings they could just build all the skycrapers in the park surrounding peak Monsanto, easy. /s
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    The purpose of housing is to house people. Historical buildings are nice, but for apartment blocks at least, yes, the priority has to be actually housing people. You can always require historical-looking facades if looks are a concern.
    - ephbit 4y ago
      > You can always require historical-looking facades if looks are a concern. I assume you have actually seen the inside of old buildings with your own eyes. In no way is the look & feel of the inside of an old building comparable to a modern one. Yes, old buildings sure have downsides. But pretending nobody looses anything when you only keep historical (or even just historical looking) facades is eyewash. I bet there are ways for the Portuguese Gvt to encourage renovation of all the dilapidated old style buildings instead of encouraging speculators to wait for them to collapse so they can build new and cheap and with loosing every bit of charm a building can have.
      - qu4z-2 4y ago
        The grandparent does rather seem to want to replace Lisbon with Disneyland.
- WheatM 4y ago
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  It gives me pause when an obvious action is actively rejected for decades, but still is asserted as a "simple" solution. It might be the _right_ solution, but if it failed to be adopted for so long it can't be that simple, isn't it ?
  - hugh-avherald 4y ago
    In this case, it really is simple. It's just the opposition is vehement.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      Then it doesn’t satisfy the opposition’s requirement, and they happen to be stronger than the ones behind the “simple” solution. They are an active party, so you can’t just say “it works, but only if these people don’t exist”. This means the “simple” solution only applies to an imaginary world, and an actual solution requires a lot more thought and adjustment to accommodate for the reality of the problem.
  - sashahrzg 4y ago
    There is a profit incentive to increase housing prices for developers. Doing something to decrease prices will hurt their bottom line, so they just let the prices rise
- galfarragem 4y ago
  Nope, that’s the ultimate illusion. Portugal is already one of the EU countries with more houses per capita. More houses means more houses for foreigners. Locals would never be able to afford them. This is just the dark side of globalism cheered by Portuguese politics for decades. Competition is global now. Local middle class is having their lunch eaten by foreign rich people or even middle classes from wealthier countries while the unrestricted influx of emmigrants from poorer countries keep sallaries down. Suck it up and enjoy.
  - MrPatan 4y ago
    > More houses means more houses for foreigners. Locals would never be able to afford them How do you arrive to that conclusion? - If you built 100 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 10 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 1 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 100k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 10k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 1k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? Even if you have a model that says that building more houses raises prices for some number of houses, surely increasing the number will eventually make prices fall, wouldn't you agree? Where is that number? Shouldn't the discussion about how big is that number, and how to achieve building that many houses? "Supply increses lead to price increases" is a pretty extraordinary claim, and the only charitable interpretation of it is with the addition of "up to a point". Where is that point? Why not make the charitable interpretation yourself that people recommending more housing are recommending more housing past the price increase point? To be clear, I don't believe that the supply/price curve is anything but sloping downwards, but even if your one does have a hump, being against housing still sounds like a bad conclusion.
    - galfarragem 4y ago
      What works in theory doesn't work on reality. That's why I called it the ultimate illusion. With such a global demand for houses here is not feasible to increase the house supply fast enough to drop prices in a way that locals can afford them. You're just feeding the beast: globalization. The only way to tackle it is on the demand side. Globalization is inevitable. What I don't buy is the rate of change, it _must_ be smooth or the system may implode. Blind and raw globalization is just a way to feed the nationalisms that most people are afraid of.
rcpt 4y ago
Your comment is almost the Henry George sign https://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/how-to-fight-wealth-inequality https://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/how-to-fight-weal...
armchairhacker 4y ago
I’ve literally seen this same exact comment many, many times except with different locations. Eastern Mass, New York, Ontario, Britain, and even starting to hear it from suburban areas. The exact same concepts: cheap grandfathered lease, hoping the landlord doesn’t cancel, can’t afford rent despite making >100k, “luxury apartments”, empty apartments, illegal renting (e.g. AirBnB) and shadiness.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  I wonder how many more software unicorns will we produce that start out promising but end up (possibly) being net-negative on the society as a whole?
- personalidea 4y ago
  Germany is working to make its spot on the list. At least in the cities.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    Given that rental laws in Germany can't even be broken if you buy a property for your own use ("in theory" yes but in practice...) it is not surprising why the traditional rental market is the last place someone will want to have their property Tenant protection is good, but it breaks down in high-demand situations. And of course the better solution is to solve this on the supply side
    - jamil7 4y ago
      I don’t agree that tenant protection and increased supply are comparable solutions that can be swapped out. Ideally you’d have both.
    - llampx 4y ago
      Meanwhile it is incredibly hard to build up or out in most German cities and towns due to lack of permits. Why aren't Baugenehmigungen given out? Well, landowners vote. Also, most politicians are landowners. Lack of housing suits most people in power perfectly well. They get to control the populace through sops like the aborted rent control law Mietendeckel.
citilife 4y ago
Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Similarly, you can loosen building codes to increase production of homes, limit visa duration, require citizenship for home ownership, etc. Those are some obvious fixes, why is the government not doing it? Beyond the obvious potential fixes, all EU countries are facing the same issue: - supporting immigrants (high level of immigration) - no controls over ones border(s) (anyone can move between EU countries) - over regulation and too many social programs (reducing peoples willingness to work & increasing burden on the current tax base) - over regulation of industry and farming has left the only option to survive being to work in a city (as an example, see nitrogen reduction regulations in the Netherlands) It's all "give-and-take" you have to decide how you want to live... To me it sounds like the EU is hitting a critical state, but is there a will to make the tough calls yet?
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Tarrifs don't create jobs, they just destroy the specialized industries that used to export but now can't because you're in a trade war.
- sofixa 4y ago
  Basically all of what you said is empty populist propaganda that doesn't pass a basic sniff test. You're painting the EU as the bad guy with a broad brush and it's just total nonsense. * depends on how you define "high" levels of migration, but few EU countries fit that. Portugal does, because they explicitly encourage it. Why? Nothing to do with the EU, they're trying to fight negative population growth. * social programs aren't an EU thing, they're purely local. And the "too much social spending makes people not want to work" ia such bullshit. * there are more local regulations than EU regulations. Which ones specifically are you referring to as too much? * farming is explicitly subsidised to make it profitable. What are you talking about? * not everyone can move between EU countries, you need to be a citizen. Like the Portuguese that have moved all around (e.g. there are probably millions of people of Portuguese descent in France) It's annoying how popular empty nationalistic populists have gotten. Can't nobody bother to fact check their bullshit?
googlryas 4y ago
You do have the opportunity though. I bet you could find, say, 10 likeminded people and pool your resources and get those 2 apartments. Yes, you only get 1/10th of the cut, but if it really is easy money like that, then why not do it?
- FerociousTimes 4y ago
  Exactly, an informal REIT targeting Portuguese properties and with the rental income paying for the mortgage for your apartment.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
This seems to be a problem everywhere around the world in big cities. What’s propping all of these property prices up? Supply and demand rules don’t seem to apply at all. You might have thousands of empty apartments in a city yet the price only keeps going up. Everything is broken, but housing is particularly broken.
- woodpanel 4y ago
  > What’s propping all of these property prices up? Money printing, first and foremost
  - 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
    Via the process of federal-reserve style banks, mostly. They are allowed to create money. They don't lend out money of the depositors. They create it out of thin air by the authority of the government who has allocated these banks a special position, thus making these banks unfathomably wealthy. Unbelievably corrupt.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      It may be screwed up, but it seems to be the best system humanity has created to date. The alternative of a mineral backed currency that can’t adjust with population levels and is inherently deflationary we know to be far worse.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  I've been thinking about this I think it is the end result of globalization. First we could ship stuff overseas, then we could ship jobs overseas, now people are realizing they can ship their house overseas, and Portugal has a much nicer climate and weather than Shanghai so why not move there. Basically with the advent of the internet and the rise in remote work there's no more reason people really feel tied to a place, so in the most desirable places in the world you are no longer just competing against the people in your state or country, that real estate is now on the global market against 7 billion other people.
stuaxo 4y ago
Where does this end? A planet full of empty "luxury apartments" and most of us homeless?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- redleggedfrog 4y ago
  If history tells us anything it's rich people's heads on pikes and shit ton of strife.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    With virtualized currency and literal microwave pain rays, I don't see this remaining the norm for every boom and bust cycle. There will soon come a time where revolt is no longer possible.
  - dsq 4y ago
    Killer drones and airborne attack lasers for hire will counter that, partially, same as mounted cavalry put down starving peasant rebellions in the middle ages.
    - gverrilla 4y ago
      Police alone is enough, and also better than drones because they will disseminate ideology and also vote for your party.
- dm270 4y ago
  This sounds so much like out of a Douglas Adams book that it hurts.
screye 4y ago
Airbnb and uber for all their benefits have taken away a lot of urban planning capabilities of local govts. At the same time, they expose the general unwillingness of local govts to accomodate the need of the population or those who bring in economic value (tourists, transplants). If you are becoming a tourist hub, then create an off-town tourist area and add a convenient transit line/people mover to the central parts of town. Tourists get reasonable housing, locals don't get displaced and the influx of population does not destroy the cultural vibe of your town. Prohibition never works, and piracy is a reflection of an unmet need. Banning things merely airs out open wounds, and leads to grey-markets such as shady uber/airbnb equivalents within the city. If you want to reduce abortions, banning merely leads to riskier abortions. Examples of this are dime a dozen. When demand arrives, the cities MUST adjust to incoming demand. Couple examples of working uncomfortable compromises are: 1. Paris - Choose a small district and allow it to go full skyscraper. The rest of the town maintains its architectural identity. 2. Barcelona - Go full superblock. Means that tourist activity gets neatly distributed across the city (removing bottlenecks) and tourists do not lead to increase in car traffic. I could go on and on, but 1 fundamental truth stays. Bottlenecks only help those who control access to it. The key is to eliminate the bottleneck (more housing). Band-aids (rent-control) or equitable distribution of bottleneck gains (no-renters->only-homeowners/ more single-family-housing) never works. It only leads to the situation festering (see Bay Area / SF), and makes for an even harder problem in the future. I'm not sure if my comment conveys any cohesive point, but I hope folks get something out of it. p.s: fuck NIMBYs
- nextos 4y ago
  I truly agree with most of what you say. This famous article discusses why housing is becoming a huge problem everywhere and why that's super bad for the economy: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e.... It's been discussed here a few times, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28531025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28531025. The compromise Barcelona made is not enough. Sadly, that beautiful city is IMHO the prototypical case of getting ruined by too much tourism. In their defense, I think it's safe to state all mid-to-large cities in EU are quite crowded and unaffordable. For example, Copenhagen used to be a place where citizens enjoyed great purchasing power. Despite rent control and sale taxes, a single person in a well-paying job can hardly afford a mortgage for a decent flat right now. The same can be said of Munich, Madrid, London and many, many other places.
NoLinkToMe 4y ago
> or example, if you own three ordinary apartments in Lisbon, you can live in one of them and easily make a good living by renting out the other two as holiday apartments. Because cleaning services, guys who do repairs, etc., are cheap in Portugal, this involves almost no work. Moreover, the net worth of your property will continually increase while you do (almost) nothing. I'm a bit conflicted on this. I definitely see what you're saying (and often repeat it myself). But it should be noted: property is simply an asset like any other. If there's easy and outsized returns to be had, the demand for this asset would increase, pushing up the price to the point that the returns on the asset are in line with returns of other assets which have similar risk/effort profiles. To say that one can make money 'doing nothing' owning any asset (that has a positive return) is true. But that's not per se some kind of economic or political problem, it's a normal feature. Of course to absolutely do nothing and still earn enough to live off of, means you must have earned enough money to purchase a large amount of assets. Supposing rental income of 5%, and supposing rent is 25% of someone's wages, and supposing a 20% tax rate on your returns, you'd essentially need to purchase assets worth 100 times what someone spends on rent. (ex: if you need 40k to live on, spend 25% or 10k on rent, you'd need 100x that or 1 million returning a 5% return that's taxed 20%, leaving 40k in net income.) Amassing 100x your rent is no easy feat, and in fact it means that someway, somehow, you've provided 100x your rent in value, without spending a penny of it, and saved it all, then poured it into an asset (incurring risk and requiring some level of commercial effort), and then, yes, you could start to approach doing 'nothing'. For many that's a life's worth of work. Buying such assets is really no different from putting in an equivalent amount of money into a retirement fund, and that fund in turn buying assets like companies. Whether it's companies that buy and rent out cars, or real estate, or produce and sell, the people owning these enterprises through their retirement fund are 'doing nothing' while others are working. But the important part to note is that anyone has access to this system. Every person can, proportionate to their income (based on their economic value to society) buy assets. In fact, I'm able with a click of the button not to just buy a part of a in Portugal, but rather the biggest and most successful company on the planet: Apple. I can buy a small part in it, and profit when many of the planet's smartest and most educated people build & sell some of the most cutting edge consumer technology day in day out. Whilst doing: nothing. So I don't really see a structural problem with this system. What is problematic is the stuff around it. For example, in some countries real estate goes untaxed and is subsidised, and is bailed out when things go bad. Subsidised private profits, and socialised public losses. It's unfair and a failure of markets and governance. Another example is that swathes of people indeed inherit value to the point they've never done any contribution to the world to get into a position to 'do nothing', rather than work to retire off of the fruits of their labour, they could in effect retire from work before ever even starting. This is where the system breaks down and must be balanced, again by e.g. taxing inheritance and balancing things out. Finally, markets work when price & profit signals can balance supply & demand. If there is a shortage of bread, demand outpaces supply, the price rises, and overnight new bakeries will pop up bringing down the price. In real estate high prices often do not trigger new supply in many countries, either due to geographical limitations (e.g. the mountains of Taiwan limiting buildable space, or simply the fact physically there is a limited area we consider to be 'downtown new york' for example), but more often due to political limitations (NIMBYism). Because in real estate markets in many areas do not naturally solve the problem, government intervention is needed to ensure more equitable and fair outcomes moreso than in other types of markets. Again here I see a role for stronger taxation on outsized profits and some income support for groups otherwised pushed out of neighbourhoods.
tmnvix 4y ago
I would really, really like to see governments taking this issue seriously, starting with a proper effort to determine how many of the residences in their jurisdictions are not used as a primary residence. I suspect the results would be enlightening and point the way to effective regulation. I firmly believe that most investors are chasing capital gains as yields at current prices (even with extortionate rents) are mostly a joke. It's bad enough that some speculators don't even bother renting out their property. A widespread residential property market crash would be painful but looks like the most likely outcome and solution. I'm hopeful that as interest rates rise capital gains will diminish, disappear, or even go backwards. Indications are that this is already underway in many places.
ravenstine 4y ago
> It's crazy because all new homes and apartments are "luxury apartments" with insanely high pricing both for buying and renting. They're mostly empty or are (often illegally) rented out as holiday apartments. You'd feel at home in LA. I've seen this trend here for at least a decade now. I know some people who say that the construction of these luxury apartments is a sign that the economy is recovering, but I remain skeptical. These places are the least lived-in looking apartment complexes I've ever seen in my life. There's one down the street from where I live that was completed around 5 years ago, and I would bet good money that most of it is vacant. I rarely see people going to and from it, besides the occasional few who visit the burger bar right in front of it. Too many of the balconies look sterile. I don't know why so many of these are being built outside of LA proper, but I have a theory for why there are these massive complexes being built; the rich have spoiled children they no longer want to deal with so mommy and daddy pay for these apartments to house them. I used to deliver food to these places and, without fail, I was delivering to men and women who appeared way too young to afford such places.
- ngc248 4y ago
  Its the same trend all over the world. No one wants to build/sell affordable housing since margins on that area very less. Everywhere its luxury housing.
alberth 4y ago
Gentrification > I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive … Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding anything I know this comment won’t be received well, but aren’t you describing gentrification & how you participated (maybe unknowingly) in what has caused prices to skyrocket. And you’re now complaining because someone even more rich than you has caused prices to exceed your means, just like you did to a local person when you moved in as a foreigner.
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  Gentrification is an overblown concern. No one has the right to live in a specific area. Migration is human tendency. Just like poor people have a right to move from a rural area to a city in search of better employment opportunities, people with money have right to move to cheaper locations to get a better bang for their buck.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    There's nothing overblown about being forced out of a neighborhood you've lived in all of your life. Now the problem is reaching epic proportions all over the world. I also do not understand how the second sentence and the last aren't a direct contradiction of each other.
    - ajvs 4y ago
      The bigger complaint looks like it's about buying houses as investment vehicles, often leaving them empty, rather than using them as housing.
  - inawarminister 4y ago
    Not so when it involves crossing country lines. A country should focus on its citizens first, foreigners second. Then again EU is an unique experiment as it is.
- refurb 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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wyager 4y ago
> one big problem in societies nowadays is that you can simply get richer and richer just from owning property If this was true, everyone would buy REITs until it wasn't
- kube-system 4y ago
  That basically is what happens, repeatedly. We call them housing bubbles.
maybelsyrup 4y ago
> I'm not saying I blame these people Why not
bennysomething 4y ago
There was a post on hacker news a while back about a study in Finland showing that it doesn't matter if the new builds are "luxury", they increase so supply which will always eventually stop/slow/reverse price increases. This actually makes sense in terms of supply and demand but more interestingly it's because people tend to "upgrade" when they move this then frees up space at the lower end of the market.
- TheCapeGreek 4y ago
  The argument I've heard in South Africa for why luxury builds are the only things being built is that they're the only things that are profitable. After time and maintenance, ideally the luxury aspect falls away and it becomes affordable for the masses. Same idea as buying a car - most people won't buy brand new because of the cost.
tijl 4y ago
Some things I noticed as a foreigner exploring the Portuguese house market for the past 6 months: Indeed, prices in Lisbon and Porto are insane. Yet, even in those cities (especially in Porto) there are quite a lot of old buildings, often in bad shape, and often empty, or sometimes inhabited by just one elderly tenant. You don't see that elsewhere in Europe in cities with similarly high prices. You would expect someone to buy these properties, renovate them and then rent them out. Clearly, the rental market desperately needs this new supply. That this doesn't happen, could be because there is a lack of capital, but to me the actual problem seems to be over-regulation and especially an over protection of tenants. If, as the article states, foreigners buy multiple apartments, and then let them sit empty, it's because they are afraid of renting them out. Especially with elderly tenants, you can't increase the rent, and you can't terminate the contract. Once you start looking around for a house to buy, you'll almost certainly bump into some homes costing only a tenth of similar houses in the neighborhood, and any Portuguese knows what that means: there is an elderly tenant, paying only 20 euros of rent per month, and your only hope of ever getting them to leave, is wait till they pass away (and even then, their children might try to continue the lease at the same conditions).
- ngcazz 4y ago
  The problem is not the odd elderly tenant, the problem is at most lack of capital to renew privately-owned derelict property in urban areas
garyclarke27 4y ago
Come on, it's nowhere near dire - it's expensive yes, like just about every other capital city - Lisbon is still way cheaper than Paris or London. This poorly written rambling rant of an article has some valid points but no insight. I moved to Cascais near Lisbon 5 years ago because of Brexit and yes property has boomed, like in many other countries but money printing QE is not just a Portuguese phenomena. 10 Years ago Portugal was a basket case economy (following the financial crisis) with many talented people moving abroad - now it's the opposite it's the fastest growing economy in Europe and Talent is moving here in droves. Of course the Tax and Golden Visa incentives to attract people have pushed up property prices but they have also provided many benefits. Portugal is not densely populated Like England or Holland, even here in Cascais you see lots of unbuilt land or derelict properties. A major problem is supply side because of their slow and burdensome bureaucracy - it took us 3 years to get planning permission on a derelict property we bought for investment and we had to involve 2 architects and 5 engineers to get all the necessary paperwork in order, it's insane. Their job protection mentality needs to change towards a more dynamic job creation mentality - they need to reform their labour laws urgently to unleash amazing potential here. This would quickly solve the problem of low local wages. Many companies would invest here because of the incredible quality of life: great infrastructure, low crime, lovely climate, beautiful sandy beaches, quality food, the list goes on.
- Ligma123 4y ago
  The average salary is quite low and those people are struggling a lot with their expenses and are completely unable to set money aside for a rainy day. >even here in Cascais you see lots of unbuilt land We have no intention of becoming a concrete jungle. >Their job protection mentality needs to change towards a more dynamic job creation mentality No thank you, please just keep your opinions to yourself, and honestly find somewhere else to go. >low crime Wrong, there's more and more crime, specially in Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra, and it's increasing in Porto and Braga too. Specially on neighboorhoods with lots of "youngsters".
  - somewhereoutth 4y ago
    This is the kind of attitude that needs to change in Portugal if you want it to become something more than a playground for the rich.

jseliger 4y ago

We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city Portugal should build more housing, which is a simple, effective solution if the rent is too damn high: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-rent-really-is-too-damn-high/254718/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren.... The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like.

rcarmo 4y ago
Nope. Zoning and licensing is in the hands of politicians and construction lobbies vying for the best places to build high-value housing, which is where they get the most return.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  And those folks are voted in and supported by voters who like the fact that their homes quintuple in value. The same goes for any investment properties they buy.
spaniard89277 4y ago
You can induce demand too. Somehow they'll have to limit that demand.
- hedora 4y ago
  By definition, functional cities induce demand.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
How this usually works: "I'd do anything for lower housing prices!" Build more housing. "...but I won't do that."
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Meatloaf as an authoritarian city councillor. Seems legit.
- stavros 4y ago
  Greece has the exact same problem. Rents are skyrocketing and people can't afford to live in their own cities. We're building more housing, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Maybe SF doesn't want to build more housing, but this isn't universal.
  - pyb 4y ago
    It's probably not enough new housing is getting built. People don't even remember what a real large-scale housing spree looks like, because these last happened generations ago. These are transformative events. eg in Athens in the 1950s-1970s : https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191011-the-surprising-story-of-athens-offbeat-architecture https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191011-the-surprising-...
    - somewhereoutth 4y ago
      Indeed - in fact I live in a suburb of Lisbon that was just fields maybe 30 years ago - I am continually astonished at the vast scale of reasonable quality high density housing, all with schools, parks, hospitals etc - there must be hundreds of thousands of people here, a miracle of urban planning. Apparently the Lisbon middle classes fled to these new suburbs to get away from their small damp draughty downtown apartments, which ironically have now become so desirable.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    My experience with most people saying "we are building more housing" is that they drastically overestimate how much housing is getting built, especially relative to yesteryear. If you look at net increase in units YoY, it's usually quite modest even for booming, "in-demand" areas. The other part is that the same things that make it slower to build more housing also make it more expensive, all the various bureaucratic processes.
JoeJonathan 4y ago
In what way is building more housing simple? If it were that straightforward, California (which has much more space and money) would have done it, and Californians wouldn't be moving to Portugal.
- notch656a 4y ago
  The physical building of houses and even raising the capital to buy the materials and labor to build some sort of house capable of housing people, is not anywhere near the choke point in California. Eliminate the zoning and building inspectors and associated enforcement mechanisms and the houses would pop up. I guarantee if California said tomorrow, "build what you like on your land, there will be no permits required!" People would flock to build on the land. Whether the dangers of that outweighs the dangers of homelessness and high price families spend on rent that makes healthcare, healthy food, and education less affordable, is an exercise for the reader.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lthornberry 4y ago
  For many decades, California has had extremely restrictive building regulations, especially in the most desirable areas. That is slowly changing, but the actual building has always been straightforward. It is getting the permission to do so that is complicated, expensive, and often just impossible.
  - JoeJonathan 4y ago
    Agreed on all counts, but that doesn't make the problem of politics any less real. People problems are always the hardest to solve, especially when deeply problematic policies like Prop 13 are written into the state constitution.
    - TulliusCicero 4y ago
      You could say that it's technically simple but politically complex, sure. But what that amounts to is, "we could do it, but collectively don't feel like it."
capableweb 4y ago
> The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like. What? Have you ever been in Lisbon? The city is pretty dense as it is. You could mostly just build higher, and that has its limits too, depending on the structure and foundation. Adding more housing outside the core of the city might not be attractive enough. And increasing the density of people also means you need to increase the density of services (public and private) and utilities, which also comes with its own problem.
- FerociousTimes 4y ago
  Why does everyone want to live in Lisbon? There are other decent metropolises in Portugal and other fun spots around the country not to get crammed in the capital.
  - the_gipsy 4y ago
    That's where job opportunities are, and that's why more housing will increase the opportunities, and then the price of housing...
    - FerociousTimes 4y ago
      For a post-Covid world where remote job opportunities are on the rise, this is becoming less and less of a pressing matter. People can work from nearby towns where housing costs are relatively moderate and just hit the head office in Lisbon one or two times a week. Corporations and people need to adapt to the changing circumstances and to be open to make the necessary adjustments to advance in this world.
      - Elinvynia 4y ago
        Not all people can work remotely! This is the exact way that janitors and baristas and everyone servicing those 100k+ a year software engineers is priced out.
      - the_gipsy 4y ago
ephbit 4y ago
Yeah, Portugal should simply tear down all the old mouldy buildings of Lisbon and replace them with shiny skyscrapers, so each and every Portuguese can have their very own flat in Lisbon. Or if they're crazy enough to want to keep these old buildings they could just build all the skycrapers in the park surrounding peak Monsanto, easy. /s
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  The purpose of housing is to house people. Historical buildings are nice, but for apartment blocks at least, yes, the priority has to be actually housing people. You can always require historical-looking facades if looks are a concern.
  - ephbit 4y ago
    > You can always require historical-looking facades if looks are a concern. I assume you have actually seen the inside of old buildings with your own eyes. In no way is the look & feel of the inside of an old building comparable to a modern one. Yes, old buildings sure have downsides. But pretending nobody looses anything when you only keep historical (or even just historical looking) facades is eyewash. I bet there are ways for the Portuguese Gvt to encourage renovation of all the dilapidated old style buildings instead of encouraging speculators to wait for them to collapse so they can build new and cheap and with loosing every bit of charm a building can have.
    - qu4z-2 4y ago
      The grandparent does rather seem to want to replace Lisbon with Disneyland.
WheatM 4y ago
makeitdouble 4y ago
It gives me pause when an obvious action is actively rejected for decades, but still is asserted as a "simple" solution. It might be the _right_ solution, but if it failed to be adopted for so long it can't be that simple, isn't it ?
- hugh-avherald 4y ago
  In this case, it really is simple. It's just the opposition is vehement.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Then it doesn’t satisfy the opposition’s requirement, and they happen to be stronger than the ones behind the “simple” solution. They are an active party, so you can’t just say “it works, but only if these people don’t exist”. This means the “simple” solution only applies to an imaginary world, and an actual solution requires a lot more thought and adjustment to accommodate for the reality of the problem.
- sashahrzg 4y ago
  There is a profit incentive to increase housing prices for developers. Doing something to decrease prices will hurt their bottom line, so they just let the prices rise
galfarragem 4y ago
Nope, that’s the ultimate illusion. Portugal is already one of the EU countries with more houses per capita. More houses means more houses for foreigners. Locals would never be able to afford them. This is just the dark side of globalism cheered by Portuguese politics for decades. Competition is global now. Local middle class is having their lunch eaten by foreign rich people or even middle classes from wealthier countries while the unrestricted influx of emmigrants from poorer countries keep sallaries down. Suck it up and enjoy.
- MrPatan 4y ago
  > More houses means more houses for foreigners. Locals would never be able to afford them How do you arrive to that conclusion? - If you built 100 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 10 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 1 million new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 100k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 10k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? - If you built 1k new houses in Lisbon, would prices fall? Even if you have a model that says that building more houses raises prices for some number of houses, surely increasing the number will eventually make prices fall, wouldn't you agree? Where is that number? Shouldn't the discussion about how big is that number, and how to achieve building that many houses? "Supply increses lead to price increases" is a pretty extraordinary claim, and the only charitable interpretation of it is with the addition of "up to a point". Where is that point? Why not make the charitable interpretation yourself that people recommending more housing are recommending more housing past the price increase point? To be clear, I don't believe that the supply/price curve is anything but sloping downwards, but even if your one does have a hump, being against housing still sounds like a bad conclusion.
  - galfarragem 4y ago
    What works in theory doesn't work on reality. That's why I called it the ultimate illusion. With such a global demand for houses here is not feasible to increase the house supply fast enough to drop prices in a way that locals can afford them. You're just feeding the beast: globalization. The only way to tackle it is on the demand side. Globalization is inevitable. What I don't buy is the rate of change, it _must_ be smooth or the system may implode. Blind and raw globalization is just a way to feed the nationalisms that most people are afraid of.

rcpt 4y ago

Your comment is almost the Henry George sign https://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/how-to-fight-wealth-inequality https://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/how-to-fight-weal...

armchairhacker 4y ago

I’ve literally seen this same exact comment many, many times except with different locations. Eastern Mass, New York, Ontario, Britain, and even starting to hear it from suburban areas. The exact same concepts: cheap grandfathered lease, hoping the landlord doesn’t cancel, can’t afford rent despite making >100k, “luxury apartments”, empty apartments, illegal renting (e.g. AirBnB) and shadiness.

ricardobayes 4y ago
I wonder how many more software unicorns will we produce that start out promising but end up (possibly) being net-negative on the society as a whole?
personalidea 4y ago
Germany is working to make its spot on the list. At least in the cities.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Given that rental laws in Germany can't even be broken if you buy a property for your own use ("in theory" yes but in practice...) it is not surprising why the traditional rental market is the last place someone will want to have their property Tenant protection is good, but it breaks down in high-demand situations. And of course the better solution is to solve this on the supply side
  - jamil7 4y ago
    I don’t agree that tenant protection and increased supply are comparable solutions that can be swapped out. Ideally you’d have both.
  - llampx 4y ago
    Meanwhile it is incredibly hard to build up or out in most German cities and towns due to lack of permits. Why aren't Baugenehmigungen given out? Well, landowners vote. Also, most politicians are landowners. Lack of housing suits most people in power perfectly well. They get to control the populace through sops like the aborted rent control law Mietendeckel.

citilife 4y ago

Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Similarly, you can loosen building codes to increase production of homes, limit visa duration, require citizenship for home ownership, etc. Those are some obvious fixes, why is the government not doing it? Beyond the obvious potential fixes, all EU countries are facing the same issue: - supporting immigrants (high level of immigration) - no controls over ones border(s) (anyone can move between EU countries) - over regulation and too many social programs (reducing peoples willingness to work & increasing burden on the current tax base) - over regulation of industry and farming has left the only option to survive being to work in a city (as an example, see nitrogen reduction regulations in the Netherlands) It's all "give-and-take" you have to decide how you want to live... To me it sounds like the EU is hitting a critical state, but is there a will to make the tough calls yet?

colinmhayes 4y ago
Tarrifs don't create jobs, they just destroy the specialized industries that used to export but now can't because you're in a trade war.
sofixa 4y ago
Basically all of what you said is empty populist propaganda that doesn't pass a basic sniff test. You're painting the EU as the bad guy with a broad brush and it's just total nonsense. * depends on how you define "high" levels of migration, but few EU countries fit that. Portugal does, because they explicitly encourage it. Why? Nothing to do with the EU, they're trying to fight negative population growth. * social programs aren't an EU thing, they're purely local. And the "too much social spending makes people not want to work" ia such bullshit. * there are more local regulations than EU regulations. Which ones specifically are you referring to as too much? * farming is explicitly subsidised to make it profitable. What are you talking about? * not everyone can move between EU countries, you need to be a citizen. Like the Portuguese that have moved all around (e.g. there are probably millions of people of Portuguese descent in France) It's annoying how popular empty nationalistic populists have gotten. Can't nobody bother to fact check their bullshit?

googlryas 4y ago

You do have the opportunity though. I bet you could find, say, 10 likeminded people and pool your resources and get those 2 apartments. Yes, you only get 1/10th of the cut, but if it really is easy money like that, then why not do it?

FerociousTimes 4y ago
Exactly, an informal REIT targeting Portuguese properties and with the rental income paying for the mortgage for your apartment.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

This seems to be a problem everywhere around the world in big cities. What’s propping all of these property prices up? Supply and demand rules don’t seem to apply at all. You might have thousands of empty apartments in a city yet the price only keeps going up. Everything is broken, but housing is particularly broken.

woodpanel 4y ago
> What’s propping all of these property prices up? Money printing, first and foremost
- 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
  Via the process of federal-reserve style banks, mostly. They are allowed to create money. They don't lend out money of the depositors. They create it out of thin air by the authority of the government who has allocated these banks a special position, thus making these banks unfathomably wealthy. Unbelievably corrupt.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    It may be screwed up, but it seems to be the best system humanity has created to date. The alternative of a mineral backed currency that can’t adjust with population levels and is inherently deflationary we know to be far worse.
buscoquadnary 4y ago
I've been thinking about this I think it is the end result of globalization. First we could ship stuff overseas, then we could ship jobs overseas, now people are realizing they can ship their house overseas, and Portugal has a much nicer climate and weather than Shanghai so why not move there. Basically with the advent of the internet and the rise in remote work there's no more reason people really feel tied to a place, so in the most desirable places in the world you are no longer just competing against the people in your state or country, that real estate is now on the global market against 7 billion other people.

stuaxo 4y ago

Where does this end? A planet full of empty "luxury apartments" and most of us homeless?

deleted 4y ago
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redleggedfrog 4y ago
If history tells us anything it's rich people's heads on pikes and shit ton of strife.
- Bakary 4y ago
  With virtualized currency and literal microwave pain rays, I don't see this remaining the norm for every boom and bust cycle. There will soon come a time where revolt is no longer possible.
- dsq 4y ago
  Killer drones and airborne attack lasers for hire will counter that, partially, same as mounted cavalry put down starving peasant rebellions in the middle ages.
  - gverrilla 4y ago
    Police alone is enough, and also better than drones because they will disseminate ideology and also vote for your party.
dm270 4y ago
This sounds so much like out of a Douglas Adams book that it hurts.

screye 4y ago

Airbnb and uber for all their benefits have taken away a lot of urban planning capabilities of local govts. At the same time, they expose the general unwillingness of local govts to accomodate the need of the population or those who bring in economic value (tourists, transplants). If you are becoming a tourist hub, then create an off-town tourist area and add a convenient transit line/people mover to the central parts of town. Tourists get reasonable housing, locals don't get displaced and the influx of population does not destroy the cultural vibe of your town. Prohibition never works, and piracy is a reflection of an unmet need. Banning things merely airs out open wounds, and leads to grey-markets such as shady uber/airbnb equivalents within the city. If you want to reduce abortions, banning merely leads to riskier abortions. Examples of this are dime a dozen. When demand arrives, the cities MUST adjust to incoming demand. Couple examples of working uncomfortable compromises are: 1. Paris - Choose a small district and allow it to go full skyscraper. The rest of the town maintains its architectural identity. 2. Barcelona - Go full superblock. Means that tourist activity gets neatly distributed across the city (removing bottlenecks) and tourists do not lead to increase in car traffic. I could go on and on, but 1 fundamental truth stays. Bottlenecks only help those who control access to it. The key is to eliminate the bottleneck (more housing). Band-aids (rent-control) or equitable distribution of bottleneck gains (no-renters->only-homeowners/ more single-family-housing) never works. It only leads to the situation festering (see Bay Area / SF), and makes for an even harder problem in the future. I'm not sure if my comment conveys any cohesive point, but I hope folks get something out of it. p.s: fuck NIMBYs

nextos 4y ago
I truly agree with most of what you say. This famous article discusses why housing is becoming a huge problem everywhere and why that's super bad for the economy: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e.... It's been discussed here a few times, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28531025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28531025. The compromise Barcelona made is not enough. Sadly, that beautiful city is IMHO the prototypical case of getting ruined by too much tourism. In their defense, I think it's safe to state all mid-to-large cities in EU are quite crowded and unaffordable. For example, Copenhagen used to be a place where citizens enjoyed great purchasing power. Despite rent control and sale taxes, a single person in a well-paying job can hardly afford a mortgage for a decent flat right now. The same can be said of Munich, Madrid, London and many, many other places.

NoLinkToMe 4y ago

> or example, if you own three ordinary apartments in Lisbon, you can live in one of them and easily make a good living by renting out the other two as holiday apartments. Because cleaning services, guys who do repairs, etc., are cheap in Portugal, this involves almost no work. Moreover, the net worth of your property will continually increase while you do (almost) nothing. I'm a bit conflicted on this. I definitely see what you're saying (and often repeat it myself). But it should be noted: property is simply an asset like any other. If there's easy and outsized returns to be had, the demand for this asset would increase, pushing up the price to the point that the returns on the asset are in line with returns of other assets which have similar risk/effort profiles. To say that one can make money 'doing nothing' owning any asset (that has a positive return) is true. But that's not per se some kind of economic or political problem, it's a normal feature. Of course to absolutely do nothing and still earn enough to live off of, means you must have earned enough money to purchase a large amount of assets. Supposing rental income of 5%, and supposing rent is 25% of someone's wages, and supposing a 20% tax rate on your returns, you'd essentially need to purchase assets worth 100 times what someone spends on rent. (ex: if you need 40k to live on, spend 25% or 10k on rent, you'd need 100x that or 1 million returning a 5% return that's taxed 20%, leaving 40k in net income.) Amassing 100x your rent is no easy feat, and in fact it means that someway, somehow, you've provided 100x your rent in value, without spending a penny of it, and saved it all, then poured it into an asset (incurring risk and requiring some level of commercial effort), and then, yes, you could start to approach doing 'nothing'. For many that's a life's worth of work. Buying such assets is really no different from putting in an equivalent amount of money into a retirement fund, and that fund in turn buying assets like companies. Whether it's companies that buy and rent out cars, or real estate, or produce and sell, the people owning these enterprises through their retirement fund are 'doing nothing' while others are working. But the important part to note is that anyone has access to this system. Every person can, proportionate to their income (based on their economic value to society) buy assets. In fact, I'm able with a click of the button not to just buy a part of a in Portugal, but rather the biggest and most successful company on the planet: Apple. I can buy a small part in it, and profit when many of the planet's smartest and most educated people build & sell some of the most cutting edge consumer technology day in day out. Whilst doing: nothing. So I don't really see a structural problem with this system. What is problematic is the stuff around it. For example, in some countries real estate goes untaxed and is subsidised, and is bailed out when things go bad. Subsidised private profits, and socialised public losses. It's unfair and a failure of markets and governance. Another example is that swathes of people indeed inherit value to the point they've never done any contribution to the world to get into a position to 'do nothing', rather than work to retire off of the fruits of their labour, they could in effect retire from work before ever even starting. This is where the system breaks down and must be balanced, again by e.g. taxing inheritance and balancing things out. Finally, markets work when price & profit signals can balance supply & demand. If there is a shortage of bread, demand outpaces supply, the price rises, and overnight new bakeries will pop up bringing down the price. In real estate high prices often do not trigger new supply in many countries, either due to geographical limitations (e.g. the mountains of Taiwan limiting buildable space, or simply the fact physically there is a limited area we consider to be 'downtown new york' for example), but more often due to political limitations (NIMBYism). Because in real estate markets in many areas do not naturally solve the problem, government intervention is needed to ensure more equitable and fair outcomes moreso than in other types of markets. Again here I see a role for stronger taxation on outsized profits and some income support for groups otherwised pushed out of neighbourhoods.

tmnvix 4y ago

I would really, really like to see governments taking this issue seriously, starting with a proper effort to determine how many of the residences in their jurisdictions are not used as a primary residence. I suspect the results would be enlightening and point the way to effective regulation. I firmly believe that most investors are chasing capital gains as yields at current prices (even with extortionate rents) are mostly a joke. It's bad enough that some speculators don't even bother renting out their property. A widespread residential property market crash would be painful but looks like the most likely outcome and solution. I'm hopeful that as interest rates rise capital gains will diminish, disappear, or even go backwards. Indications are that this is already underway in many places.

ravenstine 4y ago

> It's crazy because all new homes and apartments are "luxury apartments" with insanely high pricing both for buying and renting. They're mostly empty or are (often illegally) rented out as holiday apartments. You'd feel at home in LA. I've seen this trend here for at least a decade now. I know some people who say that the construction of these luxury apartments is a sign that the economy is recovering, but I remain skeptical. These places are the least lived-in looking apartment complexes I've ever seen in my life. There's one down the street from where I live that was completed around 5 years ago, and I would bet good money that most of it is vacant. I rarely see people going to and from it, besides the occasional few who visit the burger bar right in front of it. Too many of the balconies look sterile. I don't know why so many of these are being built outside of LA proper, but I have a theory for why there are these massive complexes being built; the rich have spoiled children they no longer want to deal with so mommy and daddy pay for these apartments to house them. I used to deliver food to these places and, without fail, I was delivering to men and women who appeared way too young to afford such places.

ngc248 4y ago
Its the same trend all over the world. No one wants to build/sell affordable housing since margins on that area very less. Everywhere its luxury housing.

alberth 4y ago

Gentrification > I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive … Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding anything I know this comment won’t be received well, but aren’t you describing gentrification & how you participated (maybe unknowingly) in what has caused prices to skyrocket. And you’re now complaining because someone even more rich than you has caused prices to exceed your means, just like you did to a local person when you moved in as a foreigner.

darth_avocado 4y ago
Gentrification is an overblown concern. No one has the right to live in a specific area. Migration is human tendency. Just like poor people have a right to move from a rural area to a city in search of better employment opportunities, people with money have right to move to cheaper locations to get a better bang for their buck.
- Bakary 4y ago
  There's nothing overblown about being forced out of a neighborhood you've lived in all of your life. Now the problem is reaching epic proportions all over the world. I also do not understand how the second sentence and the last aren't a direct contradiction of each other.
  - ajvs 4y ago
    The bigger complaint looks like it's about buying houses as investment vehicles, often leaving them empty, rather than using them as housing.
- inawarminister 4y ago
  Not so when it involves crossing country lines. A country should focus on its citizens first, foreigners second. Then again EU is an unique experiment as it is.
refurb 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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wyager 4y ago

> one big problem in societies nowadays is that you can simply get richer and richer just from owning property If this was true, everyone would buy REITs until it wasn't

kube-system 4y ago
That basically is what happens, repeatedly. We call them housing bubbles.

maybelsyrup 4y ago

> I'm not saying I blame these people Why not

bennysomething 4y ago

There was a post on hacker news a while back about a study in Finland showing that it doesn't matter if the new builds are "luxury", they increase so supply which will always eventually stop/slow/reverse price increases. This actually makes sense in terms of supply and demand but more interestingly it's because people tend to "upgrade" when they move this then frees up space at the lower end of the market.

TheCapeGreek 4y ago
The argument I've heard in South Africa for why luxury builds are the only things being built is that they're the only things that are profitable. After time and maintenance, ideally the luxury aspect falls away and it becomes affordable for the masses. Same idea as buying a car - most people won't buy brand new because of the cost.

tijl 4y ago

Some things I noticed as a foreigner exploring the Portuguese house market for the past 6 months: Indeed, prices in Lisbon and Porto are insane. Yet, even in those cities (especially in Porto) there are quite a lot of old buildings, often in bad shape, and often empty, or sometimes inhabited by just one elderly tenant. You don't see that elsewhere in Europe in cities with similarly high prices. You would expect someone to buy these properties, renovate them and then rent them out. Clearly, the rental market desperately needs this new supply. That this doesn't happen, could be because there is a lack of capital, but to me the actual problem seems to be over-regulation and especially an over protection of tenants. If, as the article states, foreigners buy multiple apartments, and then let them sit empty, it's because they are afraid of renting them out. Especially with elderly tenants, you can't increase the rent, and you can't terminate the contract. Once you start looking around for a house to buy, you'll almost certainly bump into some homes costing only a tenth of similar houses in the neighborhood, and any Portuguese knows what that means: there is an elderly tenant, paying only 20 euros of rent per month, and your only hope of ever getting them to leave, is wait till they pass away (and even then, their children might try to continue the lease at the same conditions).

ngcazz 4y ago
The problem is not the odd elderly tenant, the problem is at most lack of capital to renew privately-owned derelict property in urban areas

garyclarke27 4y ago

Come on, it's nowhere near dire - it's expensive yes, like just about every other capital city - Lisbon is still way cheaper than Paris or London. This poorly written rambling rant of an article has some valid points but no insight. I moved to Cascais near Lisbon 5 years ago because of Brexit and yes property has boomed, like in many other countries but money printing QE is not just a Portuguese phenomena. 10 Years ago Portugal was a basket case economy (following the financial crisis) with many talented people moving abroad - now it's the opposite it's the fastest growing economy in Europe and Talent is moving here in droves. Of course the Tax and Golden Visa incentives to attract people have pushed up property prices but they have also provided many benefits. Portugal is not densely populated Like England or Holland, even here in Cascais you see lots of unbuilt land or derelict properties. A major problem is supply side because of their slow and burdensome bureaucracy - it took us 3 years to get planning permission on a derelict property we bought for investment and we had to involve 2 architects and 5 engineers to get all the necessary paperwork in order, it's insane. Their job protection mentality needs to change towards a more dynamic job creation mentality - they need to reform their labour laws urgently to unleash amazing potential here. This would quickly solve the problem of low local wages. Many companies would invest here because of the incredible quality of life: great infrastructure, low crime, lovely climate, beautiful sandy beaches, quality food, the list goes on.

Ligma123 4y ago
The average salary is quite low and those people are struggling a lot with their expenses and are completely unable to set money aside for a rainy day. >even here in Cascais you see lots of unbuilt land We have no intention of becoming a concrete jungle. >Their job protection mentality needs to change towards a more dynamic job creation mentality No thank you, please just keep your opinions to yourself, and honestly find somewhere else to go. >low crime Wrong, there's more and more crime, specially in Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra, and it's increasing in Porto and Braga too. Specially on neighboorhoods with lots of "youngsters".
- somewhereoutth 4y ago
  This is the kind of attitude that needs to change in Portugal if you want it to become something more than a playground for the rich.