227
Portugal’s bid to attract foreign money backfires as rental market goes ‘crazy’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
227 points (97.9% liked)
World News
38987 readers
3348 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Portuguese here. The rental market in Portugal is completely separated from the reality of portuguese wages. As an example, minimum wage is 750€/month per 14 months. Meaning 875€/month if you count 12 months.
Rents in Lisbon for a bedroom usually start around 500€. And the situation in the other cities with somewhat decent jobs is getting as bad as in Lisbon.
That is not too far off what it is like in most cities in the U.S, believe it or not.
Where I am, minimum wage is $12. At 40 hrs a week this is $24,000 before tax. Roughly $16,000 after tax.
That's ~$1333.33 per month in earnings.
2023 fair market rent in my state for a 1br is $947, but in reality, the units that are available are closer to double that price. I'd say most 1br units are $1300 - $1700 in my area.
Our prices for a one bedroom apartment, depending on location, can also go that high, but I think you might be conflating what "a bedroom" means here. It's 500€ for a bedroom in an apartment, not the whole one bedroom apartment.
When I moved back to Portugal about 4 years ago, I actually pondered on going to Germany instead, and actually went and lived in Berlin for a while and investigated and compared costs of living.
Back then rents were already higher in Lisbon than Berlin (whilst salaries in the former are less than 1/3 those in the latter!!!) and the only thing that made living in Lisbon cheaper was that Portugal has a National Health Service (free to use) whilst residence in Germany means mandatory Health Insurance which for me - who have my own company - meant an extra €300+ a month in costs.
In the last 4 years housing costs in Lisbon went up by almost 50% and in Berlin it was 10% or so (if I remember correctly), so now it's actually significantly cheaper to live in Berlin, which is a way better place than present day Lisbon to live in pretty much every way but Weather.
I'm actually living in a small city about 200km from Lisbon were I pay less than €400 a month for a one bedroom in rent, so it's not bad for me, but that's because I'm not having to live on the average portuguese income and don't have to raise a family.
Living in Lisbon would be crazy and I would be better of moving to a more cosmopolitan place like Berlin (especially because, having lived in Amsterdam, London and Berlin, for me Lisbon just feels like a pretty provincial city, hilariously filled with people who don't know best and by comparing themselves with the countryside think they're sophisticated and forward thinking).