Tugadaily chart: net share of euro-area banks reporting lower demand for housing loans, from -15% in Q2 to -27% in Q3 and an expected -36% in Q4

Real Estate 29 October 2026

Euro-area banks see mortgage demand shrinking into winter (Portugal's expect only a dip)

In the ECB bank lending survey published on 27 October, the net share of euro-area banks reporting lower demand for housing loans reached -27% in the third quarter, from -15% in the second, and banks expect -36% for the fourth. Portuguese banks, surveyed by Banco de Portugal, expect only a slight fall and unchanged lending criteria.

Fewer people across the euro area are asking banks for a mortgage, and banks think the slide has further to go. In the ECB’s quarterly survey, published on 27 October, the net share of banks reporting lower demand for housing loans hit -27% in the third quarter. It was -15% in the second, and banks themselves had only expected -12%.

For October to December they are pencilling in -36%.

What is putting buyers off

Interest rates first. Then falling consumer confidence, then gloomier views of the housing market. The ECB is careful to add that, steep as it is, the drop is well short of the peak seen in the last hiking cycle.

On the lending side, standards for home loans held steady over the summer. They will not stay that way. Banks expect to tighten them significantly in the fourth quarter, and the share of rejected applications has already gone up for every kind of borrower.

And in Portugal?

A calmer picture. In Banco de Portugal’s run of the same survey, demand for housing loans fell slightly in the third quarter because of rate levels, without denting household credit overall. Criteria got slightly tighter, partly because of the central bank’s revised macroprudential recommendation and partly because of how banks read the market and house prices.

For the end of the year, Portuguese banks expect only a slight fall in demand for both mortgages and consumer credit, and no change in lending conditions.

The gap between the two is the story. Across the euro area, borrowers are pulling back fast. In Portugal, people are still knocking on the bank’s door, even with repayments climbing at this year’s resets and after the ECB raised rates to 2.5% in September.

By Duarte Figueiredo

Chart: Tugadaily, with ECB data

Tugadaily chart: median house asking price per square metre, June 2026

Real Estate 28 October 2026

House prices in Portugal: the tracker

A running tracker of Portugal's housing market — the INE price index, bank valuations, rents and affordability. Updated with each new data release.

We gather here, in one place, how Portugal's housing market is moving. Instead of one article per data point, we update this page with the essentials: the INE price index, bank valuations, rents and affordability for buyers and renters — which since 1 August also runs through the new mortgage rules, with the debt-service cap down to 45%. Official data is at INE.

Real Estate 25 October 2026

4 things Trump's new housing order actually changes

The 22 October executive order sets up a pilot to cancel mortgage insurance once owners have enough equity at today's values, puts HUD and the FHFA in charge of a manufactured-housing task force, makes a title-insurance alternative permanent and cuts rates on USDA and VA home loans.

Donald Trump signed another executive order on housing on 22 October, his third on the subject this year. It goes by the plain title Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People, and it does not touch prices directly. It goes after the costs that pile up around buying, financing and refinancing a home. There are four moving parts. Americans who buy with a small deposit pay mortgage insurance every month until they hold enough equity. The order tells…

Tugadaily chart: share of home owners aged 25-34 across five generations, rising from 42% to 70% and falling back to 42%

Real Estate 24 October 2026

Portugal's 25-to-34-year-olds own their homes at the same rate as in 1981: 42%

Pordata's census figures show that 70% of Portuguese born in 1967-76 owned their home by 25-34, against 42% for those born in 1987-96, the same share as the 1947-56 generation. Prices rose 41.5% between 2020 and 2025, the steepest climb among the EU countries where they rose.

Owning your home by your early thirties used to be normal in Portugal. Among people born between 1967 and 1976, 70% owned the place they lived in when they were 25 to 34. For those born between 1987 and 1996, that age arrived with 42%. The figure comes from the first issue of "Factualmente", a new format from Pordata, the statistics database run by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation. Its debut, published on 23 October, is about housing, and it…

Real Estate 28 September 2026

The ultra-rich now own nearly four homes each. Portugal is well placed to be one of them

Knight Frank's Residence Report 2026/27 counts 3.8 homes per ultra-high-net-worth owner, up from 2.9 in under a decade, and names Lisbon, the Algarve and Comporta among the places well placed to catch that money.

Less than a decade ago, the average ultra-wealthy owner had 2.9 homes. Today that figure is 3.8. It is the headline number in the Residence Report 2026/27, published by Knight Frank in association with Quintela + Penalva, and it says something about where top-tier money is actually going: not into one bigger house, but into more houses, spread across more places. Portugal shows up well on that map. The report sees Lisbon, the Algarve and Comporta as a…

Real Estate 22 September 2026

Lisbon debuts on the UBS bubble index (in the elevated-risk tier, next to Miami and Dubai)

The Swiss bank added Lisbon and Seoul to its sample this year, and the two newcomers posted the largest rises in bubble risk of any city. Lisbon sits with Miami, Dubai, Seoul and Geneva after a decade of real house prices climbing almost 7% a year.

Being added to a housing bubble index is not the kind of debut a city puts on a poster. Lisbon has just made one. UBS has published its Global Real Estate Bubble Index every year for twelve years, and the 2026 edition covers 23 cities. The two new entries are Lisbon and Seoul, and those two recorded the biggest increases in bubble risk in the whole survey. Lisbon went straight into the elevated-risk band alongside Miami, Dubai, Seoul and Geneva. Only…

Bar chart of median rent on new contracts by sub-region in the first quarter of 2026: Greater Lisbon €14.38 per square metre, Madeira 11.97, Setúbal peninsula 11.35, Algarve 10.71, Porto metro area 10.13 and the national median 9.46, noting that the city of Lisbon itself stands at 17.42

Real Estate 22 September 2026

Did cutting 6,765 short-term lets bring Lisbon rents down? The numbers say no

The city cancelled about 40% of its short-term rental registrations in February, taking active listings from nearly 20,000 to 11,779. In the quarter that covers the cut, median rent on new contracts in Lisbon rose 8.2% to €17.42 per square metre, the highest in the country.

For years the standard answer to Lisbon's housing costs was Airbnb. Take the short-term lets out of the market, the argument ran, and the flats come back to ordinary tenants. Lisbon has now done exactly that, at scale, and there are finally numbers showing what happened next. On 1 February the city council finished an administrative clean-up of its register and cancelled 6,765 short-term rental licences, roughly 40% of the city's total. Most were ghost…

Real Estate 22 September 2026

Portugal's BUPi land registration is free until 30 September, then the fees come back

Identifying and registering rural and mixed plots at the Balcão Único do Prédio costs nothing until 30 September 2026, after which the fees return. Since April a plot also cannot change hands without a georeferenced graphic representation on file.

There are nine days left, today included, on a deadline nobody is counting down, and missing it costs money. Until 30 September 2026, identifying and registering a rural or mixed plot at the Balcão Único do Prédio is free — the identification itself, and the registration fees with it. From 1 October, the charges come back. The free window is not new. It has been extended before, and the extension that runs out this month came in Decreto-Lei n.º 87/2026,…

Tugadaily bar chart of the days between the decree-law and the portaria setting maximum rents: 15 days in 2019, a 30-day legal limit, and 120 days in 2026 and still counting

Real Estate 17 September 2026

The rule that sets Portugal's affordable rents is 90 days past its own legal deadline

The simplified regime has had legal effect since 1 September, but the maximum rent by property type only exists once a portaria is published. Article 16 of the decree-law gave the government 30 days from 20 May. In 2019 the equivalent took 15.

Everyone reported that Portugal's new affordable-rent regime is waiting on a portaria. Nobody checked when that portaria was supposed to arrive. We read the decree-law, and the answer is written into it. The Simplified Affordable Rent Regime was created by Decreto-Lei 97/2026 of 20 May. Article 16, headed Regulation, gives the government 30 days from publication to approve the portarias the regime needs, and the missing one is precisely among them. Thirty…

Real Estate 14 September 2026

The EU's new housing law is not just an Airbnb law (empty flats and second homes are in it too)

The European Commission tabled the Affordable Housing Act on 9 September. It bans nothing by itself — it gives councils a shared yardstick for proving housing pressure before they restrict anything.

The story reached Portugal last week wearing a single label: Brussels is going to regulate short-term rentals. True enough, and nowhere near the whole of it. What the European Commission tabled on 9 September is called the Affordable Housing Act and, on the Commission's own page for it, it reaches the rules authorities already write about short-term rentals, second homes and vacant dwellings. All three, not just the one everybody argues about.

Tugadaily chart showing the year-on-year fall in buildings licensed in Q2 2026: Greater Lisbon -35.1%, Algarve -24.9%, Setúbal Peninsula -20.3%, Portugal -7.1%

Real Estate 12 September 2026

Only two Portuguese regions issued more building permits this spring

Councils licensed 6,162 buildings between April and June, down 7.1% in a year. Greater Lisbon fell 35.1% and the Algarve 24.9%, while new-build dwellings licensed rose 10.8% to 11,834.

Portuguese councils granted permits to 6,162 buildings between April and June. That is 7.1% fewer than in the same quarter of 2025 — and, oddly enough, an improvement on the start of the year, when the drop was running at 9.7%. Buried further down the release is the number that matters if you are house-hunting. Dwellings licensed in new builds for family housing rose 10.8%, to 11,834. Fewer buildings, then, but more homes inside each one. Apartment blocks…

Évora seen from the south, the cathedral rising above the city's white houses and terracotta roofs

Real Estate 12 September 2026

Évora is planning 7,000 new homes and a health cluster (and wants your comments by 12 October)

The revised Évora urban plan proposes more than seven thousand dwellings, a health cluster beside the new hospital and fresh business areas. Anyone can file comments until 12 October.

Évora opened its consultation on Monday and it stays open until 12 October. The revised Urban Plan for the city is now public, and any person or organisation can read it and respond. What is proposed is substantial: more than 7,000 new dwellings, a health cluster next to the hospital still under construction, and new land set aside for economic activity. Mayor Carlos Zorrinho called it a plan for the coming decade, built so the city can break what he…

Tugadaily bar chart of annual house price changes in August 2026: Santarém 22.9%, Pico Island 20.8%, Terceira 19.6%, Évora 19.5%, Viseu 17.1% and Lisbon 4%

Real Estate 11 September 2026

The district where Portuguese house prices rose fastest is not Lisbon or Porto

Median asking prices per square metre rose 22.9% year on year in Santarém in August, against 4% in Lisbon. Nationally the figure held at 3,207 euros per square metre, barely moved from July.

Santarém. That is the Portuguese district where homes for sale gained the most value over the past year, with an annual rise of 22.9% in August, according to the idealista price index. Lisbon, over the same period, rose 4%. Behind Santarém come Pico Island at 20.8%, Terceira at 19.6%, Évora at 19.5% and Viseu at 17.1%. Portalegre and Coimbra follow, both at 17%. Of the 25 districts and islands measured, exactly one fell: Faial Island, down 10.1%.

Real Estate 9 September 2026

Rents rose in 14 of Portugal's 19 districts last month

Asking rents were up 4.9% year on year in August, to a median of €18.1 per square metre, according to idealista's index. Viana do Castelo led the rises at 32.2% in the city, while Porto fell 6.3%.

If you are scrolling rental listings right now, the national average matters less than the number for the place you actually want to live. The national figure says asking rents rose 4.9% in August against the same month last year, to a median of €18.1 per square metre. What happens district by district is a very different story. Idealista's price index shows rents up over twelve months in six of the seven regions it tracks. The exception is the North,…

Tugadaily bar chart of median price per square metre for homes sold in the first quarter of 2026: Greater Lisbon €4,322, Algarve €3,899, Portugal €2,337

Real Estate 8 September 2026

22 million property adverts, 30 countries, one finding: Lisbon is near the bottom

An atlas published in the Journal of Maps by two TU Wien researchers asks how much housing an average local salary buys on a 30-year mortgage. Greater Lisbon lands among the European regions where the answer is under 50 square metres.

This study asks a more useful question than the usual one. Not what a house costs. How many square metres an average local salary buys, if a third of income goes to a thirty-year mortgage. Run that way, the Lisbon metropolitan area falls into the group of European regions where an average salary does not stretch to 50 square metres. Portugal as a whole shows up among the continent's hardest places to buy a home on the national wage, alongside the…