Foreigners bought more than 70,000 houses in Portugal in five years

Foreign investment "encouraged" and helped the recovery of Portuguese real estate in recent years. And the numbers leave no doubt: in five years, between 2012 and 2017, foreigners bought 70,700 homes in Portugal, for a total value of 11.1 billion euros.

According to the accounts of the Association of Construction Companies, Public Works and Services (AECOPS), non-residents invested about EUR 800 million in real estate in the Portuguese market in 2012. The investment has more than tripled in 2017, the year that were hit € 2.8 billion.

The data also show that the year 2014 was one in which the weight of real estate transactions by non-residents was higher (15.7% of total), been declining since then, up to 11.5% in 2017. "Significant part of these acquisitions" in 2014 was directed at properties valued at more than 500 thousand euros, representing almost 44% of purchases. This representativeness, however, declined: in 2017 properties exceeding this amount represented 36.3% of the acquisitions.

The Algarve continues to be the region "preferred" by foreigners to invest. It concentrated 43% of the acquisitions in 2017, followed by Lisbon and Alentejo (37%) and North / Center (17%). Note that almost half of the total amount transacted by non-residents in this five years corresponded to acquisitions made by UK residents (18.3%), France (17.9%) and China (12.7%).