Foreigners invest €343.9 million in housing in Lisbon

By Kim Schiffmann, in Business · 06-12-2019 01:00:00 · 0 Comments

Between January and June 2019, foreign investment in housing in the Lisbon Urban Rehabilitation Area (ARU*) amounted to €343.9 million out of a total of 759 operations.

In terms of representativeness, international investment accounted for 34 percent of total investment by individuals in housing at ARU Lisbon in the first half of 2019, which amounted to €1.02 billion according to data calculated by Confidencial Imobiliário under the scope of the SIR-Urban Rehabilitation and considering residential real estate acquisition operations carried out by individuals.



Foreign investment for the first half of 2019 grew by 10 percent compared to the €311.8 million recorded in the first half of 2018, although there was a decrease of another 10 percent compared to the second half of 2018, when €382,5 million were traded.



“International investment in housing remains very robust and continues the strong momentum of last year, when it reached an unprecedented level of €694.3 million. In the previous two years, this activity was between €300 and €375 million per year, i.e. trading per year, practically what is currently being traded per semester. Another indicator of the strong interest of foreigners in Lisbon is the increase in the average price per operation, which went from €393.2 thousand (1st sem. 2018) to the current €453.0 thousand, 46 percent above the national prices, that remained virtually unchanged at around €306 thousand” commented Ricardo Guimarães, director of Confidencial Imobiliária.







In geographical terms, the parishes of Misericórdia and Santa Maria Maior are the main destinations for foreign investment in housing, with investments of €55.5 million and €54.9, respectively, and a similar 16 percent share. Also worth mentioning is Santo António with a 12 percent share and €42.8 million invested and Arroios with an 11 percent share of €38.3 million. In these four parishes, international investment has a strong representation, and in Santa Maria Maior, foreigners are even responsible for 80 percent of all housing investment in the semester, while in the parish of Misericórdia it is 54 percent. In Santo António and Arroios it amounts to, respectively, 48 percent and 47 percent.



However, there is a growing interest from foreigners in other areas of the city, with the parishes of Ajuda, Benfica, Carnide, Campolide and Areeiro registering the strongest growth in foreign investment over the same period of 2018 (between 70 percent and 165 percent), even though they maintain total investment quotas below 2 percent. In this set of parishes, foreigners represent a maximum of 25 percent of all the volume invested in their parish, reaching a minimum of 6 percent in Benfica.