I’m traveling to Portugal in a couple of weeks to take possession of my 2-BR house in Evora that is finally finishing a its rehabilitation after 2+ years and intend to operate it as a short-rental (Booking, AirBnB, etc.) so need to furnish it during my one-week stay and find a property manager that would service Evora. Curious if anyone has gone through a similar experience and can share any wisdom. I’ve got one property management reference from this forum, but would appreciate any additional recommendations. Also any tips for where to buy furniture, housewares, electronics, etc. (I see there’s an Ikea in Lisbon) and/or if there is some kind of paid service that can help with this.
On a short schedule, IKEA is just about your only reliable option. Others to check are Conforama and Hôma, but they are far more limited. There are some furniture stores south of Lisbon (across Tejo, around Foros de Amora).
Unfortunately I don’t much about what’s available in Évora as it is very cute town, but rather small to attract large retailers.
Good luck!
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For your specific case, I second IKEA for most furniture, because:
- Convenient “Large Delivery” option, which will deliver items to specific rooms in your house
- (Loose) TaskRabbit integration to assemble heavy items like beds
- Chance to examine the items for yourself (in most cases) at your local IKEA before ordering
But know that orders can take a week or more to deliver, so you may want to place the order very soon, before arriving in Portugal.
For other household items, I can’t vouch for the Évora branches but the following are well-known names:
- Worten: computers, computer peripherals, home electronics, appliances
- FNAC: computers, computer peripherals, home electronics, appliances
- Hôma: mediocre, cheap houseware
- VIVA: mediocre, cheap houseware
- Leroy Merlin: DIY hardware
My suggestion would be to immediately do a quick scan of VIVA and Hôma in Évora to buy the basics that you find acceptable, and then maybe do a shopping trip to Lisboa to fill in the rest. (We like Cerâmicas na Linha near the Baixa-Chiado metro station in Lisboa.)
Amazon (Spain) could often be cheaper, but the delivery windows can be wider than you expect, tying you down for a big part of the day.
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Thank you Roman and Clever Spirits for the responses! Good info and looks like I’ll probably need to pre-order some of the larger furniture items from Ikea which I’ve been hesitant to do without seeing the spaces they’re going into, but is what it is. Much appreciated!
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Ikea has generous return policies anyway—in case things don’t fit as expected. They are also good for basics such as cutlery, plates, etc but these can easily be picked up in the warehouse. Check out the 365+ series—usually good quality for reasonable prices.
Of course, if you rent a van or similar you can pick up most of the Ikea furniture same-day (you can check what’s in stock on the website), in case you don’t trust delivery to happen when it’s supposed to.
Another retailer that’s quite nice if you’re a fan of Scandinavian interior design is Jysk. The closest one would be this one about 70 minutes away from Evora. They usually have nicer looking items than Ikea, especially for decoration or sometimes even smaller furniture pieces (like lounge chairs). Not sure about this particular store, but the Jysk branch I visited in Portugal didn’t have much furniture in stock, so you may want to order ahead of time and just return the items that don’t work out.
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One specific thing I will complain about with Ikea cookware is the medium and large size pots, for whatever reason, are incredibly slow to boil water on my induction range
Other than that no complaints
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Hey Matt, we’ve come to love our property management company. I know that they operate out of several locations in Portugal but not sure about Evora. Feel free to DM me if you’re interested in details. I can check with them before introducing you if you’re interested.
Hi Matt,
We also have a 2 bedroom place in Evora that we have been renting via Airbnb for the past 12 months.
We used the following stores/websites to furnish and prepare for short term rentals:
- IKEA - definitely order ahead as other have suggested
- https://www.maisonsdumonde.com/PT/pt
- https://www.laredoute.pt/
- Homa (Evora)
- Leroy Merlin (Evora)
- Auchon (Evora) “hyper” market
- Next Colhão (Evora) Mattresses
We found several property management companies by looking through existing Airbnb listings and the company we chose has been fantastic to work with. That said, they are currently in the process of moving out of the Evora short term rental market (otherwise I’d recommend them). After 12 months we are moving to long term rental after running the numbers. Airbnb + property management fees really eat into the returns even though we had an average 59% occupancy rate over the past year. We will definitely miss the option of staying at our own place though!
DM me if you have any questions. Good luck and be prepared for a busy and intense week!
Cheers