this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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I've been thinking about this for a while since my country, Portugal, has a very similar problem as Spain in terms of a gigantic housing bubble fed in large part by foreign "investment" money making offers at levels that the locals can't match (and, worst, a bubble eagerly pumped up by local politicians via things like making Golden Visas available for those who make a €500k "investment" in realestate) thus pulling the prices up far beyond what would naturally happen if the market was purelly local and even causing problems such as a massive brain drain (as young people, not being able to afford a home on local salaries, just leave the country in droves, especially those with Degrees).
As I see it, the solution should be based on Residence rather than Nationality - so the restrictions should be based on people being or not a registered Resident of Portugal (say, for 2 or more years), independently of their Nationality (and hence would also apply to Portuguese nationals not residing in Portugal).
This would not only be entirelly fair for people such as immigrants living in Portugal who are just as much a part of helping the country as the rest, but would also not fall foul of the EU rules that do not allow an EU country to treat citizens of other EU countries differently, because a Residence rule applies to everybody equally (including Portuguese nationals).
It would be a way to block just as much the Well-of middle class pensioner couple from France as the American venture fund from playing the realestate market in Portugal and pulling prices up beyond the reach of the locals because they can much more easilly outbid the locals.
The article speaks about residence. Nationality is not mentioned as a requirement in the article. Inside the EU it is impossible to make such limits to discourage other EU nationals. The EU is one market and freedom of movement, goods, services and capital must not be impeded.
And the pensioner couples are not so much of an issue if they permanently live there and spend money in the local economy.
The "holiday home for four weeks a year" people are an issue as well as speculators buying to keep empty and then sell a decade down the road.
Also the article quotes a realtor with:
Which is good. Because people who are convinced about buying to live are not effected while investors can fuck off.
Yeah, I didn't read the article and just went from the headline, which is misleading.
For the rest, your comment is pretty much what I meant or things I agree with.
(My example of the French pensioner couple isn't about the kind of people who come over and live here, it's about the ones for whom Portugal/Spain are just investment playgrounds and who will never get hit by the societal side effects of a house price bubble in the countries they're "investing" in - one could say such people are like poluters who don't have to live with the consequences of their own polution)