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70,000 Britons own homes in Portugal
• 17 May 2007 •
 ENTHUSIASM among British investors for property in Portugal shows no sign of diminishing, and to prove it are the 70,000 Britons who now own homes in Portugal, as well as the 2,000,000 British tourists who have travelled to Portugal last year, the Portuguese Commerce Chamber in the UK has stated. According to the London-based association, more than 100 delegates attended the latest annual Portuguese Property and Tourism conference in London.
“This conference has grown each year in scope and size, reflecting the widening interest in Portugal for Tourism and Residential Property,” said a spokesperson of the Portuguese Commerce Chamber. Antonio Santana Carlos, the Portuguese ambassador, opened the conference, remarking on the significance of tourism and residential property to the Portuguese economy and the government’s recognition of its important benefits.
Jorge Armindo Teixeira, CEO of Amorim Tourism, travelled especially from Portugal to act as chairman of the conference. He introduced each of the eight speakers, who examined different aspects of this economy.
First on stage was Luís Correia da Silva, former Secretary of State for Tourism in Portugal, who explained how projects of national importance from the private sector are recognised and promoted through the PINS (Projects of National Interest) system, describing the criteria used and how the system works.
It was not only projects of above 25 million euros which qualified but also below, if they met four of the seven requirements. The PIN status gives a project a single contact point with the government and a speeded up approvals procedure.
In Portugal, the operations of estate agents, builders and developers are now carefully regulated. Claudia Assis de Almeida, a member of the board of the government agency InCI, Institute of Construction and Real Estate, explained that the agency has already started and the internet based system for applications for licences which will soon be expanded to cover real estate promotion and condominium management. “The expanding Portuguese market has had much interest from Ireland and other EU states as well as from UK buyers, where the long alliance with Portugal has made for a happy partnership,” said Antonio Silva, London director of the Portuguese Trade and Tourism Office, stressing that the high degree of tourism inflows into Portugal and especially into the Algarve are being considered by tourism authorities as “very important”.
In 2006, the Algarve took 38.5 per cent of the overnight stays in Portugal and over one million rounds of golf were played in the region, representing three out of every four rounds played in Portugal. Paul Donoughue,
director of Special Projects at Savills Plc, detailed the factors involved in making a development attractive to buyers from the UK and Ireland, and Brian Eustace, Executive Director of the INTA Group, analysed the reasons for Portugal’s big attraction for the golfer.
He suggested that this was not simply climate or history based but that the economics and style of clubs was also important. An insight into the Irish investors’ view was given by David Hanrahan of OMG Investment and Finance. He described three different buyer profiles in Ireland each looking for different returns and time scales. He identified that typically an Irish investor allocation was about 71 per cent property based, with equities only 16 per cent. He also remarked on the Irish buyers’ confidence in buying off plan.
An overview of the wide range of funding options available to buyers of Portuguese property was given by Tom
Foster, International Mortgage Adviser at Conti Financial Services, and the criteria applied by lenders in different countries. Jorge Armindo Teixeira brought the speaker sessions to a close by summarising the main themes of the conference and how they fitted in with his experience as CEO of one of Portugal’s largest hotel and property groups. |  Return to Top
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