The thrills of selling property in Portugal

A restored old house in one of central Portugal’s “Shist” villages

I’ve been living in Portugal for five years now. I arrived in May 2019 and bought a beautifully restored old cottage in a small village outside the historic town of Tomar. I love the house –two bedrooms, two bathrooms, cosy living room, modern kitchen and half an acre. I also love the village. But after five years I realize that I want more company, especially during the long wet autumn and winter months. (There was a reason I didn’t want to move to Ireland or England.)

Buying and selling property in Portugal is a very different experience than in the US. They don’t have the same multiple listing service (MLS) and they don’t have lockboxes on properties. In my recent experience, this made scheduling viewings much more difficult. Time and again I was given an appointment, only to have it changed because it wasn’t convenient for the home-owner/occupant.

That also was a huge difference. In the US the homeowner would NEVER be present for the showing! I appreciated the reason for the US practice when I put my Portuguese house on the market and had a couple traipse through making critical comments. Grr! Still, it is the norm here to have the owner/occupier present.

Contracts

If you use a realtor in Portugal, they will typically charge a fee of 3 percent to 5 percent of the selling price. The percentage is lower if you sign an “exclusive” agreement for a fixed period, say six months. You sign a “Mediation Agreement”. When I signed my Mediation agreement it contained a sub-clause that allowed them to charge four percent if a realtor from another agency brought them a client who ended up buying the property. Apparently the two agencies split the commission. It increases the number of potential showings and buyers, but the seller pays more.

When you make an offer in Portugal and it is accepted, the next step is the “Promessa”. The buyer usually puts down a deposit of 10 percent of the agreed purchase price. The “Contrato de promessa de compra e venda” spells out the terms and the projected date for closing. Often this is 60 days or more.

More differences

When I sold a house in the US I had to fill out a long list of “disclosures” explaining details about the foundation of the property, the water supply, roof, air-conditioning etc etc. Then a home inspector came and snooped around to see if he (it was always a he) could find any picky details to complain about. One inspector even cited a loose screw on an outside electrical socket.

Here in Portugal it is caveat emptor. Anecdotally I heard of a woman who knew her house had woodworm problems in the roof beams but said nothing to the buyers –– because she didn’t have to!

Prices rising

I made a research trip to Portugal the year before I moved. I traveled from just south of Lisbon to several places in the center and north of the country. When I returned to the US I told a friend that buying property in Lisbon would be a great investment. I was right.

When I looked at some houses in central Portugal in 2018 and 2019, it was possible to find livable places for around 100,000 euros. Now places for less than 100k typically need a lot of renovation. Prices in the countryside in central Portugal are now closer to 200k. Higher in other parts of the country, lower in the far north.

Property prices have risen steadily in the past ten years. The increases have been steepest in the greater Lisbon area and the Algarve, along the south coast. Cities in other parts of the country have also experienced soaring prices. Press reports attribute the increases to the greater numbers of foreigners looking to buy property in Portugal.

The beautiful coastline of the Algarve attracts many tourists and foreigners seeking to buy property in Portugal.

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Relief as Portugal extends resident permit deadline

Castelo São Jorge overlooks the red-tiled roofs of Lisbon

I for one am heaving a huge sigh of relief after learning that the Portuguese government has extended the deadline to renew residency documents. Based on a decision issued June 28, document-holders now have until June 30, 2025 to renew residency permit documents that expired this year. Whew!

The government was spurred to take action because of thousands of complaints and a massive backlog of cases–around 400,000!!

Huge backlog of cases

The situation has developed over a long period. Late last year, SEF, the struggling Foreigners and Border Service, was reorganized into the Agency for Integration Migrations and Asylum. This step was supposed to solve the backlog of 350,000 cases at SEF. Not. So. The number of unresolved cases continued to mount.

This situation affected me because I moved to Portugal five years ago, in mid-2019. I used my Irish passport as my identification document. (Thank you Irish grandparents.) Ireland is a European Union country so I did not have to obtain the D7 visa required of non-EU passport holders.

I received a Certificado de Registo da Cidadão Europeo from my local county authority, the Camara Municipal. That document was due to expire June 17.

I thought I had plenty of time to tackle the issue. In February I went to the Camara Municipal but they said I had to go through AIMA.

I immediately started trying to contact AIMA by phone or online. No success. I just got a busy signal or was kept on hold for two hours then my call dropped. The online appointment booking system was no help either. Panic ensued!

Friends from the US and other countries who have lived here several years, said they have had to cancel travel plans because their documents expired. They were afraid they would be stopped at passport control when returning to Portugal. This deadline extension will give us all a reprieve.

Deja vu

The Portuguese government has had to take similar action before because of problems in handling immigration cases. The country has seen a surge in immigration in recent years. The majority of those moving here are from Brazil, the UK and, more recently, the United States.

Rabelo boats that used to carry Port wine on the Douro river, lie at anchor near the Dom Luis I Bridge in Porto, Portugal.

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Portugal’s EU election bucks trend

Rayburn/Lisbon skyline — The red tiled roofs of Lisbon’s Alfama district look out over the Tejo river.

Voters throughout the European Union turned out early this month to cast ballots for the European Parliament. These elections take place every five years, giving citizens in each of the EU’s 27 member countries the opportunity to choose a representative.

What does the European Parliament do? Here is the quick explanation laid out in the Europarl.europa.eu website:

The Parliament acts as a co-legislator, sharing with the Council the power to adopt and amend legislative proposals and to decide on the EU budget. It also supervises the work of the Commission and other EU bodies and cooperates with national parliaments of EU countries to get their input.

Portugal’s turnout among the lowest

Countries throughout the EU cast ballots on different days. Portugal’s election day was Sunday, June 9. Turnout was 36. 4 percent, putting Portugal on the lower end of the spectrum. Belgium had the highest turnout with 89.82 percent of voters participating. Croatia, with 21.35 percent, was the lowest, according to provisional results reported on June 14.

Far-right parties came first in five of the countries. Germany’s Alternative for Deutchland (AfD) and France’s National Rally (RN) were big winners in those two countries. The results alarmed French president Emmanuel Macron who has called for a national election three years ahead of schedule. There have been large street demonstrations in Paris against the far right party in the recent days.

A different outcome from March

Portugal bucked the trend seen elsewhere in Europe. The country’s center-left Partito Socialista (PS) was the big winner with 32 percent of the votes. This gave them eight of Portugal’s 21 seats in the EU Parliament. Chega, the far-right party, won 9.8 percent of votes cast and has just two seats.

This is a huge change from March when Chega had a strong showing in Portugal’s national election. At that time, the party received 18 percent of the votes, up from 7.2 percent in 2022 and around 2 percent in 2019, the year the party was founded.

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One of Lisbon’s iconic yellow and white street cars.

Splashing fun in Portugal’s river beaches

Agroal, a river beach on the Rio Nabão in central Portugal has a separate pool area as well as the sandy beach areas along the river.

The beach is the place to be during Portugal’s hot summer months. Yes, you can go to the popular, crowded, coastal spots. The beaches of the Algarve and the Alentejo attract thousands of tourists. But you don’t have to go to the coast. Portugal is also famous for its river beaches.

What is a river beach?

You may well ask. Think of it this way: wide stretches of sand accumulate on the bends as a river winds its way to the sea. Many of these sandy spots have been turned into beach attractions. Yup, there they are, complete with umbrellas, restaurants, water sports and vendors selling inner tubes and other colorful floatation devices.

Some river beaches are more like swimming pools, created by diverting a portion of the river between walls where the shallow water is accessible by stairs.

“River beach” near Lousã castle in central Portugal.

The river beach beside Lousã castle is near a hiking trail that meanders through the Shist Villages (Aldeias de Xisto). These remote historic villages are built from a type of stone known as shist.

Many river beaches have picnic tables where families can come and enjoy refreshments while they loll in the sun. A word of warning, the water is often breathtakingly cold. Still, a lot of people risk a dip just to cool off when the thermometer climbs over 30 degrees C. (86 F).

A river beach along the Rio Mondego between the city of Coimbra and the town of Penacova.

Kayaking is another popular activity. The 18-kilometer route down the broad, slow-moving Rio Mondego from near Penacova toward Coimbra is a great day adventure.

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Portugal is eco-friendly in many ways

An ancient Roman bridge in central Portugal. — Spring flowers cover the surface of a stream near an ancient bridge in central Portugal.

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When I first spent an extended time in Portugal I noticed a lot of little differences about the way people do daily life compared to what is commonly done in the US. Now that I have been living in Portugal for nearly five years, I just take all these differences for granted. But a recent trip back to the states made me realize how much I have accommodated to my new life in Europe. I also appreciate how many of the customs in Portugal reduce water, plastic and paper waste that is harmful to the environment.

Eco-friendly shopping

In Portugal, the supermarkets and small grocery stores do not bag your groceries. You must bring your own shopping bags or buy one at the checkout. The bags you buy are large and sturdy so you can fit a lot into one bag. You yourself must stuff all the items you have bought into the bag at the checkout. This saves a mountain of plastic bags from ending up in landfills. I was saddened to see that in Albuquerque, where I used to live, the city council reversed a decision to ban those plastic bags.

Another practical innovation is the way you use shopping carts. They are typically linked together and you must insert a coin or a plastic token to release the cart to take it into the store. After you’ve unloaded your shopping, you return the cart, reconnect it and you get the coin or token back.

This is a simple way to ensure that carts are returned. In Albuquerque I was used to seeing shopping carts abandoned all over the place. On a windy day a rogue cart could damage your car. It was also probably a big expense for the supermarkets to lose them.

An ancient bridge near Lousã castle, central Portugal. The pool is used for swimming in the summer.

Bathroom etiquette

In a lot of private homes, restaurants and even small hotels in Portugal, it is common to see a sign asking you not to put any paper or other products into the toilet. In private homes it’s because they have a septic system that can’t handle large volumes of toilet paper. I’m assuming the restaurants etc have some similar problem. Anyway, you have to re-train yourself to put the TP into the small container next to the toilet. It took me a while to be consistent about this.

I have even found some bathrooms, such as at a train station or a shopping mall, where you have to grab a length of TP from a huge roll hanging on the wall by the sinks, BEFORE you go into the stall.

Of course men rarely have either of these problems.

A couple of other points about bathrooms. Most toilets in Portugal have dual flush options which save water. Bathrooms typically have hot air blow dryers instead of paper or cloth towels to dry your hands.

Time and temperature confusion

After nearly five years of living in Portugal, I have become bi-lingual in matters of time and temperature. I am no longer flummoxed when trying to decide whether to take the train at 17:00 or 19:00, hint 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. Saying a.m. and p.m. seems so inefficient. Here you know immediately whether you’re talking about 12 noon (12:00) or midnight (24:00) .

I’ve also adjusted to using Celcius versus Fahrenheit referring to the weather. I’ve become used to thinking that 20 degrees C (68F) feels pretty comfortable and 40 degrees C (104F) is nigh-on unbearably hot. Returning to the US and reading that it’s 21 degrees I have to do mental gymnastics to remember that is really cold! Or, I could just stick my nose outside!

How far is that?

I must confess, I have not adapted so well to using kilometers versus miles, or kilograms instead of pounds. I used to be a very enthusiastic cyclist in New Mexico. There are mountains in NM but there are a lot of opportunities to ride on flat ground too. A 30 mile flat ride was considered pretty easy. I live in a hilly area in central Portugal and it is hard to find flat routes. Hence, a 30 km (18.6m) ride in my area is pretty tough!

I have to use grams and milliliters for European cooking recipes but I keep my bathroom scales on pounds so I still can’t tell you what I weigh in kilos. (I probably wouldn’t anyway!)

Cycling in the hills of Figueira dos Vinhos — Cycling in the hills near Figueira dos Vinhos, central Portugal.

Celebrating 50 Years of Democracy in Portugal with flowers and a song

A banner image of a carnation decorates the city hall in Grândola, as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in 1974.

(Grândola, Portugal) Fifty years ago this week, the Carnation Revolution of April 25 1974, ended more than forty years of a brutal dictatorship in Portugal. The Portuguese celebrated the anniversary with marching bands, parades, flowers and an iconic song–Grândola Vila Morena.

This song, by José “Zeca” Afonso, was played on the radio as a signal to the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) to begin the coup. Captain Fernando José Salgueiro Maia is remembered as a hero of the day for facing down forces loyal to the government led by Marcelo Caetano.

By the evening of the 25th, the coup succeeded and Caetano resigned without blood being spilled. Instead, the brilliant red carnation became the image of the revolution when a restaurant worker, Celeste Caeiro, gave a flower to a soldier who put it in the muzzle of his gun and–to use a 21st century phrase–it went viral!

Archive photos used in the film about the 1974 revolution, “A Hora da Liberdade”

Night and Silence during the dictatorship

The years of the Estado Novo, from 1933 to 1974, were grim for the Portuguese people. Under the stern and autocratic António de Oliveira Salazar, and his successor Caetano, thousands of people were imprisoned and tortured, women were subservient, unable to even open their own letters, and public gatherings were banned. Even Coca Cola was prohibited lest it threaten the Portuguese wine industry.

Portuguese poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen expressed the deep joy as the country emerged from this dire period with the words”

“Esta é a madrugada que eu esperava, O dia inicial inteiro e limpo, Onde emergimos da noite e do silencio.

Rough translation: This is the dawn I longed for, the first day complete and clean, when we emerge from the night and silence”

A marching band plays “Grandola Vila Morena” at a flag ceremony in the town of Grandola on April 25, 2024, the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution that ended a decades long dictatorship.

Disturbing /new trend

Despite the joyful celebrations, a recent election showed Portugal, like other European nations, is trending to the right. Throughout most of the past fifty years, Portugal has had centrist or mildly socialist governments. In 2019 a new hard right party, Chega, appeared. That year it received a mere 1.3 percent of votes. But it has steadily gained in popularity. In an election held March 10 this year, it received 18 percent of the votes.

50th Anniversary of the Carnation Revolution on 25 April, 1974.

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Portugal Celebrates 50 Years of Democracy

Dancing in the streets on April 25, 2023, bigger celebration planned this year.

Next week Portuguese people throughout the country will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. The bloodless event freed this small nation and allowed it to move forward with the rest of Europe.

Portugal endured more than 40 years of a brutally repressive regime which began in 1932 and ended in 1974. During the “Estado Novo” which was created by Prime Minister Antonio _de_Oliveira_Salazar , there was strict censorship of the press, books, music and arts. People lived in fear of being reported to the secret police, the PIDE (Policia International e de Defesa do Estado). Thousands were arrested, tortured and imprisoned during those years.

Women unable to open their own mail

Conditions for women under the dictatorship sound similar to present day Afghanistan under the Taliban. The teacher at the Portuguese classes I have attended told us that during that period women were not allowed to travel, work outside the home or open their own mail without their husband’s permission. Groups of people were not allowed to gather together in public. Coca Cola was forbidden because Salazar believed it might threaten Portugal’s wine industry.

Colonial Wars

Salazar was a staunch supporter of Portugal’s colonies; Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, in Africa, Goa in India and Macau in China. In the early 1960s Portugal sent troops to quell independent movements in the African colonies. These colonial wars were very costly and unpopular. Many Portuguese fled their home country to go work in France so they didn’t have to participate in those conflicts. (When I moved to Portugal in 2019, I quickly found that many older Portuguese speak fluent French from their years there.)

Salazar suffered a debilitating stroke in 1968, was replaced as prime minister by Marcelo Caetano, and died in 1970. Meanwhile, many of the lower ranking officers serving in Africa began planning to overthrow the dictatorship. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) was also active in organizing opposition.

Popular Song Gave the Signal

On April 25, a song played on the radio, “Grandola Vila Morena”, was the signal for the armed forces, with widespread popular support, to overthrow the regime. The coup gained its name because people in the streets handed red carnations to the soldiers who put the flowers in their gun barrels or on their uniforms. Within a few hours Caetano had resigned and the Estado Novo came to an end with hardly a shot fired.

Soon after the overthrow of the regime, the former colonial countries in Africa began their own struggles to complete the transition to independence. Back in Portugal a major symbol of the change was the renaming of the iconic bridge across the river Tejo in Lisbon from the Salazar Bridge to the 25 April Bridge.

The iconic April 25 bridge over the river Tejo in Lisbon.

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Exploring Portugal’s Douro River Valley

A cruise ship gliding up the Douro river near Regua. The steep, terraced hillsides in many areas are planted with grapevines.

I’ve been living in Portugal for four years now but I had never been to the Douro Valley until this week. I made the visit thanks to some English friends who stayed a few nights with me then wanted to venture on northward to see the area where the grapes used to make the famous Port wines are grown.

We set off in the beautiful campervan that they have used to travel from England, via ferry to Spain. They are intrepid travelers, coping with living for weeks in this tiny space on wheels as they explore the length and breadth of Spain and Portugal. They avoid the expensive and mindless toll roads and opt for routes that lead them through colorful towns and villages. Sometimes ending up in streets so narrow they’ve had to pull in their side mirrors and pray they don’t get stuck.

The Dão wine growing region north of Coimbra

Our route took us from my home near the central Portuguese town of Tomar, past the famous university city of Coimbra to head northward. We stopped to picnic by a river in the Dão wine growing area. Here the villages were bright and well-kept and the hillsides were covered in neatly pruned grape vines. In the distance to the east, we could see the snow-capped ridge of the Serra d’Estrela, Portugal’s mountain range.

Continuing north, we passed through the bustling city of Viseu. Beyond that we traveled over hills and through immense, steep-sided valleys. Despite the remoteness, the area was well-populated. Another busy town we passed through was Lamego which has an impressive church atop a long series of steps.

The Santo Estevão hill leading to Nossa Senhora dos Remédios church, Lamego in northern Portugal.

Douro Valley by train

Our goal was to reach the town of Régua on the Douro river where we could get a train to Porto. We parked the van near the train station and caught the regional train headed to Porto. Heading west, the train follows the river course for about an hour. The views of the terraced vineyards overlooking the river are magnificent.

It takes about two hours by train to reach the São Bento train station in the center of Porto. If you want to make a day of it, you can take the train from Porto heading east and go all the way up river to Poucinho.

A statue of the famous “Sandeman” port label image stands atop a hillside opposite the town of Régua.

The famous Ports of Porto

Porto, or Oporto, is Portugal’s second largest city. It is probably best known for the fortified red wines that bear its name. Apparently, a tax applied to French wines in the 17th Century led the wine-loving British to look for other sources. Slowly but surely, English entrepreneurs established themselves in the growing and production of the wines from the Douro valley.

Port is a “fortified” wine, containing a higher amount of alcohol than normal red wines. This is achieved by adding a proportion of distilled alcohol, “Aguardente” (a type of Portuguese brandy) to the wine to stop the fermentation to preserve the sweetness and richness of the flavor.

Grahams, Calem, Kopke and Taylor’s are among the famous Port names that have their production facilities along the south side of the river in Vila Nova de Gaia. We toured the Taylor’s port lodge.

Casks of Port in the Taylor’s port lodge, Vila Nova de Gaia.

The self-guided tour of the Taylor’s port lodge cost 20 euros and took about an hour. The visitor’s center opens at 10 a.m. There is a tasting after the tour and you can buy port wines in the on-site shop.

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These flat-bottomed “rabelo” boats were traditional used to bring barrels of port wine down the fast-flowing Douro river.

Unusually wet spring: the new normal?

Rivers throughout Portugal are running high after weeks of rain.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: It rains a LOT in Portugal.

November and December are typically the wettest months, but the last few weeks have reminded me of a week I spent in Bali during the rainy season. Okay, we have had a couple of days of sunshine here and there. And it hasn’t rained all day every day.

Last week we did see temperatures climb to around 26 C (78F), but a sandstorm in the Sahara sent dust our way and the skies remained stubbornly hazy. My car was covered in the fine brown dust. However, before I could think about washing it, the weather changed again.

This week the temperatures in my part of central Portugal have been in the 10C – 12C range (50F – 54F), and the rain has been incessant. Areas further north, like the Serra d’Estrela, are expected to get snow. The forecast is that this will last through Easter.

Wetter, colder in the north

Unsurprisingly, northern Portugal experiences colder and wetter weather. The Minho area near the Spanish border, cities like Braga and Bragança are typically much colder than the southern regions of Alentejo and the Algarve. Braga averages about 57 inches of rain annually, Porto 45 inches and Lisbon 31 inches, while the Algarve averages 20 inches.

Just as in areas of the southwestern United States, rainfall in the Algarve has led to a serious drought problem. The mayor of a city near Faro has said the situation is becoming “catastrophic.”

However, you’d never guess that if you visited some of the fancy vacation resorts that feature emerald green golf courses and lush landscaping. Nevertheless, the Portuguese government is expected to introduce wide ranging water saving measure.

I wish I could send some of the rain tipping down on my property to the Algarve. But I should be grateful because the rain brings out beautiful spring flowers!

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Irises are growing wild all around me in central Portugal.

Elections show Portugal’s drift to the right

This statue overlooks the Praça do Comercio in Lisbon. The two hands of the statue are a metaphor for the longstanding balance in Portuguese politics, but that is changing as the recent election showed a shift to the right.

Portuguese elections held last Sunday, March 10, yielded a razor-thin majority for the Democratic Alliance party. But the DA lead was only two seats more than the Socialist Party so forming a government will be a delicate balance, according to reports.

More revealing was the strong showing of the far-right Chega party which gained about 18 percent of the votes. That’s up from 7.2 percent just two years ago.

In 2019, the year the party was launched by former football commentator André Ventura, it garnered just 1.3 percent of the votes cast.

The DA leader Luis Montenegro has publicly stated that he does not want to include Chega in a governing coalition. Still, expectations are high that Chega (Enough) will play some kind of role in the balancing act.

The snap election was called in November after former Socialist Party Prime Minister António Costa resigned following a corruption scandal. Turnout in Sunday’s election was 66 percent, which was the highest in several years, according to a BBC report.

The many Chega billboards that appeared all over the country showed Ventura’s face and an anti-corruption message calling for a clean-up in Portugal.

Most support in the Algarve

Election results showed Chega drew its highest level of support from voters in the Faro region in the Algarve. It’s the area along Portugal’s southern coast, home to numerous golf courses and upscale resorts which have long attracted tourists from northern Europe.

It is also an area where there are great discrepancies between local families and the well-heeled visitors.

Several other European countries such as Finland, Italy and Greece have experienced a shift to the right in recent years. It remains to be seen what will happen in Portugal.

Meanwhile, next month the country will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974. The bloodless revolution marked the end of more than four decades of authoritarian rule. During that period, according to my Portuguese teacher, there were many informers and thousands of people were arrested, thrown into prison and tortured.

Portugal has been proud of its democratic tradition since 1974.

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