I am also wondering about this scenario. If one is a new applicant for GV under the non-RE fund (EUR 500k), how will the renewals be 2 years from now? Will the renewals be under an entrepreneurial visa (D2)? What about the stay requirements of 14 days every 2 years? Will this still be the rule going forward? So many doubts and uncertainties!
All renewals going forward will be under D2. The stay requirements will be 14 days every 2 years, in spite of it being a D2. There is no ambiguity in this.
The recently published regulations totally ignore the awkward passage in the Mais Habitacao law (which said that pending applications would be evaluated by one of a list of agencies), and briefly but clearly state that pending applications will be processed by the old rules. This ignoring is naturally causing some unease (did they just miss it, will it come back in a future amendment or the AIMA manual, etc), but in my humble opinion, no it wonât, no retroactive harm will be done.
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While using GV money to build subsidized housing may be useful to some degree, the real problem is just the red tape and laws about building housing in Lisbon and other portuguese cities. Itâs clearly not a problem of getting money - thereâs plenty in the ecosystem, bidding up the price of housing.
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If only 100 GV approvals per month could fix the housing market in PT, we would know the solution to a problem shared by many other western countries.
Economists know the technical solution - build more housing!
The problem is purely political. More affordable housing = cheaper property. Homeowners (and landlords) generally donât want their property value to go down. Therefore any real solution will be politically opposed.
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Itâs a common fear, but is misunderstood. The value of their housing may be lower, but the value of the property it is built on skyrockets. At least in high desireability areas. Some marginal areas would see land values go down, like second or third ring suburbs (in an american context) where people have been pushed to live because their first choice (city/1st ring suburb) is too expensive
i think it is probably also over-assumed that there just isnt the will to build housing. there isnt the will to build unprofitable housing. per those economists, the market will fill (reasonable) demand. âreasonableâ in this case being âwilling to pay market ratesâ. the market is very good at catering to people with money. it is less good at taking care of people with very little money.
labor is expensive, materials are expensive. you canât put expensive and expensive together and end up with affordable. so really our options are to either build so much medium and high end housing that the prices plummet and it becomes affordable, which we wont do, or the government starts building housing and giving it away, also unlikely (US perspective.)
is this way off base? whats your take on the actual solution?
Spot on. I work in real estate development myself - we have projects in Portugal, so am well aware that itâs difficult to make development stack up. But thatâs where a GV fund investing in developing reasonably priced housing could come in. Many of the GV funds offer investors pretty low returns. The options theyâre now left with are on the whole high risk - VC funds, or a donation. An investment in to an affordable housing fund with the aim to get your original capital back, or a small return on the upside, could have been appealing to GV investors. I know itâs not going to fix the housing problem in GV, but it would have helped.
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Good idea.
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Thatâs why itâs so frustrating to see the direction they chose to go with the MH law. The affordable housing fund was such an OBVIOUS idea that the total lack of any mention of something like it made it clear to me that Costa doesnât actually care about the housing problem. I hope his successor is more interested in solving problems than just spouting populist rhetoric.
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Completely. The MH law was always pure populism - dog-whistle politics by going after an easy target, trying to win votes by appealing to the emotional response of the electorate. As you say, not an informed attempt to address the underlying issues at all. You donât need to look very far to see the negative impact that rent caps have on the development of housing for exampleâŠ
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If they wanted to build a dog whistle:
- rather than âWeâre going to stop ârich foreignersâ buying half-million+ euro homes that youâd never consider anyway.â
- wouldnât âWeâre going to make ârich foreignersâ invest in affordable housing for the people of Portugalâ be more effective?
If youâre going to be a populist, at least be a smart populist?
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smart populist
Oxymoron, of course
Thereâs some evidence out of Seattleâs attempts at mandated âaffordableâ housing requirements within upzoned areas that suggests developers arenât interested in that sort of thing.
And of course Auckland famously nuked their extreme property use restrictions (zoning, etc) and has seen housing prices fall, with the expectation they will fall more once a big glut of supply in the works is finished up
Thereâs really no alternative to building more housing. People will try all sorts of stuff, but it doesnât work. It is a basic supply and demand issue.
Re: developers only building âluxuryâ or âmarket rateâ housing, yes of course. First of all, luxury is a marketing term. Second of all, all housing should be market rate, just make the market rate affordable by building a lot. Look at Japan for examples of how that works - basic brand new apartments somewhat outside Osaka, when I was looking, were in the 200k USD range, and that was for a top floor, brand new unit. If youâre willing to get a smaller, older, or less desirable place, prices are even lower.
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Iâm curious about an aspect of the new regulations. Does PT have access to the US database such that an FBI background check might no longer be necessary? The US apostille system is still at 11 weeks, so there really isnât any possibility of having an apostilled certificate within 3 months of issue.
EDIT: I suspect not as only Canada has full access to NCIC.
Not at all surprising that people are mad about housing being expensive, thatâs totally normal.
Iâm not sure it relates to the Mais HabitacĂŁo law specifically though.
On another note, Ana Bacalhau makes great music, highly recommended
The lyrics are explicitly calling out digital nomads and GV holders as the cause of the problem. I donât think sharpened pitchforks need to make legislative citations.
My bad, I read the text not the image. Youâre right of course
Iâve heard from my lawyer they are going to amend the GV law again this year to prohibit any GV investments related to olive oil .
/s
Iâve been distrustful of olive oil for a while now. Like apparently a lot of Italian âOlive Oilâ is cheaper oils dyed green and resold by the Italian Mafia.