Housing vs. Short Term Rentals in Portugal

[Eric Menchen]

Well, a new law awaiting Presidential approval looks to shake things up:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/port ... index.html

It will really be interesting to see what happens to costs (if) when this goes through. It might make for prime conditions to buy something if you aren't in fact planning to rent it out. I've been thinking about buying for years, with no particular plans to rent out like AirBnB; but I was considering trading on one of the vacation home trading websites.

[Moses Botbol]

First step in diminishing property ownership rights. These types of laws are springing up all over the place.

[Andy Velebil]

Not surprising given how many popped up in short time and the issues they can cause in such large numbers. Hopefully they find reasonable grounds between all interests.

[Glenn E.]

Yeah that's a tough one to resolve. Maybe they need a separate classification for active multi-room rental properties vs Air B&B properties that isn't as large as a hotel?

Based on the article it sounds like the "problem" is that the new law doesn't distinguish between a sub-hotel-sized 6-room hostel and a spare bedroom-style Air B&B or single-occupant rental property. To me, it sounds like the latter is the real problem, because foreigners buy up properties to then turn around and rent, which drives up the price of real estate for locals.

[Eric Menchen]

Yes, while that article was focused on the hostel thing, I think the implications will be interesting across the board. What really surprised me about this was the magnitude of the step taken given that it hasn't been all that long since the last regulations were passed. Portugal already passed laws to limit short term rentals, to my recollection with a limit to like 10% of the housing stock in a given area. Has that had time to have an effect, and has that been studied? It sounds like they didn't do any real analysis for this new law.