Real Estate 10 November 2026

Building a new home in Portugal costs 7.4% more than a year ago, and site diesel is up 35%

INE's new-housing construction cost index rose 7.4% in September. Materials are now up 7.2%, the fastest since February 2023, driven by diesel, copper wire, bitumen and PVC pipes.

Building a new home in Portugal cost 7.4% more in September than a year earlier, according to the construction cost index for new housing from INE, the national statistics office. The headline figure is not new (June hit 7.4% too). What sits underneath it is.

A year ago, almost all of the pressure came from wages. Materials were barely moving, up 1.4%. Now they are rising 7.2%, the fastest pace since February 2023, and they now add as much to the increase as labour does.

Which building materials got more expensive?

Diesel leads the list. INE says the fuel that runs diggers, cranes and concrete trucks was about 35% dearer than in September 2025. Copper wire is up roughly 30%, the bitumen used for waterproofing and paving about 25%, and PVC pipes about 20%. Of everything INE tracks, only limestone and granite tiles and stonework got cheaper, and only slightly.

Labour is still climbing too, up 7.7% in a year. Splitting the total, INE credits 3.8 percentage points to materials and 3.6 to labour.

What does a 7.4% rise mean for a real project?

On our maths, a job budgeted at €100,000 in September last year would now cost about €107,400 on these costs alone. Go further back and the index sits almost 36% above its 2021 average. Developers try to pass that on in the asking price, which is one more piece of the puzzle behind Portugal’s house prices still climbing.

One caveat: the index measures what it costs to build, not what new homes sell for. Land, permits and the seller’s margin all sit on top.

When is the next reading?

July to September are still provisional and usually get revised by a tenth or two. The next release lands on 10 December, with October’s data. With oil moving around, the diesel line is the one to watch.

By Duarte Figueiredo

Image: Nuno Morão / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Facade of a residential block in Mem Martins, Sintra, with rows of identical blue and yellow balconies

Real Estate 9 November 2026

Portugal tops the EU for homes outrunning incomes, and 2025 was the worst year yet

Eurostat's house price-to-income ratio rose 60.8% in Portugal between 2015 and 2025, the biggest rise in the EU and almost nine times the EU's 6.8%. In the underlying series, 2025 alone added 12.1%, the steepest year since 2001, leaving Portugal 37% above its long-term average, the highest reading in the 27.

If every property listing seems to make your pay packet look smaller, Eurostat has the numbers to back you up. Between 2015 and 2025 the ratio of house prices to household income per person rose 60.8% in Portugal, the largest increase of any EU country, according to Eurostat's release on Monday. Across the EU it rose 6.8%. Portugal's rise is almost nine times that. Next come the Netherlands (+34.3%), Hungary (+26.5%), Czechia (+25.8%) and Spain (+24.5%).…

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

Real Estate 8 November 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 7 November 2026

Alentejo opens €13.8M for public rental homes. Projects the recovery fund dropped can apply

Call ALT2030-2026-64, published on 6 November, funds Alentejo councils and inter-municipal bodies that build or refurbish public homes to let at affordable rents. The first round closes on 30 November, there are 14 rounds to the end of 2027 and the homes must stay affordable for 20 years. Projects that lost their recovery-plan funding are eligible.

Alentejo councils now have a dedicated line of EU money for public homes at affordable rents. Call ALT2030-2026-64 from the Alentejo 2030 programme, published on 6 November, puts €13.8 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) towards building or refurbishing public housing to rent below market. It is not for private owners. The call says plainly that private housing is not supported.

Real Estate 5 November 2026

A 25% rent deduction sounds generous. Under the current cap, it stops paying at €556 a month

Chega took two IRS ideas to São Bento: raise the tenant rent deduction from 15% to 25% and bring back mortgage-interest relief of up to €1,200 a year. The PS wants to scrap the €2,300 'moderate rent' tier, freeze lease expiries until 2027 and exempt capital gains on second homes up to €300,000. We ran the numbers on what each would change.

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro sat down with PS leader José Luís Carneiro and Chega's André Ventura at São Bento on Thursday to hear their housing proposals. By the time we published, there was no public account yet of what, if anything, had been agreed. What we do know is what each party brought along, and some of it goes straight into the tax return of anyone paying rent or a mortgage in Portugal. So before cheering or dismissing any of it, here are the…

Real Estate 4 November 2026

Montenegro wants PS and Chega in the room on housing. Talks start Thursday

In a televised statement on Tuesday night, Portugal's prime minister said he will meet the PS and Chega leaders at São Bento, sent four ministers to talk to the other parties, tied the talks to the rental reform before parliament and spoke of €10 billion for public housing by 2030.

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro will host the leaders of the two biggest opposition parties, José Luís Carneiro (PS) and André Ventura (Chega), at São Bento on Thursday 5 November to hear their housing proposals. He announced it in a statement to the nation on Tuesday evening, as DN reported, after weeks of protests and street camps in Lisbon and Porto.

Illustration of a glass house filled two-thirds of the way with gold coins, beside a shield with a tick, a key and a calendar with its last day marked

Real Estate 3 November 2026

Two-thirds of Portugal's youth mortgage guarantee is gone. The deadline will bite before the money does

By the end of September, banks had used 66.5% of the state guarantee for buyers aged 35 and under: €1.42bn across 48,859 loans. On our sums, at the third-quarter pace roughly €460m would still be left when access closes on 31 December. The 2027 Budget plans to extend the scheme.

Portuguese banks have now used 66.5% of the state guarantee that lets people aged 35 and under buy a first home with little or no deposit. That is €1.42bn guaranteed across 48,859 mortgages between January 2025 and the end of September, according to figures the Bank of Portugal released on 29 October, as reported by RTP. Two-thirds gone with three months still to run sounds tight. The arithmetic says otherwise.

Illustration of a green apartment door with a key hanging beside it and two pages torn from a wall calendar falling away

Real Estate 2 November 2026

Portugal's rent bill now waits on Chega (and the minister insists evictions don't get easier)

Housing minister Miguel Pinto Luz said on 2 November that bill 103/XVII creates 'no new grounds' for eviction. What changes is the timing: two months of unpaid rent instead of three. The bill passed its first vote on 30 September only because Chega abstained, and is now in committee.

Portugal's housing minister used Monday's budget hearing to push back on the charge that has followed the rental reform since July. Miguel Pinto Luz said the new law creates "no new grounds" for eviction and that no one is evicted without a court ruling. In the same session he asked Chega to come and finish the text with the government. Those two remarks belong together. Without Chega, the bill dies. The parliamentary record for bill 103/XVII shows how…

Split illustration: on the left a row of British brick terraced houses in the rain under a grey sky, on the right a Portuguese house with a blue and white tiled facade at sunset

Real Estate 1 November 2026

Selling up in Britain to buy in Portugal? The price gap just got wider

Nationwide's October index shows UK house prices up just 0.5% on a year, the weakest since January 2024, with the average at £273,566 and no change on September. In Portugal, INE's bank valuation hit a record €2,278 per square metre in September, up 14.2%.

The British housing market has stalled. According to Nationwide's house price index, UK homes were only 0.5% more expensive in October than a year earlier, the weakest annual growth since January 2024, and prices were flat on the month. The average now sits at £273,566. Portugal is moving the other way. The valuation lenders carry out before approving a mortgage, the closest Portuguese match for Nationwide's mortgage-based index, hit a new high in…

Illustration of a salmon-pink Lisbon apartment building with iron balconies and green shutters between two neighbours, with a gold key and a house-shaped tag in the foreground

Real Estate 31 October 2026

Lisbon landlords can charge €2,066 for a five-bedroom flat and pay no income tax on it

Portaria 454/2026/1 has set the rent caps for Portugal's simplified affordable-rent scheme (RSAA) in all 308 municipalities. Rents at or below them are exempt from income tax. Only Lisbon tops €2,000, and in half the country the cap for a two-bed sits below €480.

A landlord who lets a five-bedroom flat in Lisbon for €2,000 a month can now pay no income tax at all on that rent. The condition is that the contract sits inside Portugal's Simplified Affordable Rent Scheme, the RSAA, and the number that makes it possible was published two weeks ago. Portaria 454/2026/1 of 13 October sets a maximum rent for every type of home in each of Portugal's 308 municipalities. Until it came out, the scheme was running on caps from…

Illustration of a white Portuguese house with a terracotta roof and azulejo band, a golden key, euro coins and a dotted arrow curving downwards across an evening sky

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%.

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…