The National Association of Realtors counted 3.75 million sales at an annual rate in October, down 5.5% on the month and 8.8% on the year. The 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.33%, against 6.25% a year earlier, yet the median price still edged up 0.4% to $416,700.

By Duarte Figueiredo

Illustrative · Photo: Kindel Media / Pexels

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.

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…

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%).…

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.

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…

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.

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.

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…

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…

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…

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%.

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…

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…

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…