Latest news and stories about rent control in Portugal for expats and residents.
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro announced this Friday the approval, in the Council of Ministers, of a set of 'structural and strategic instruments for transformation and reform' focused on housing, with the goal of increasing supply and facilitating market access. Among the main measures is the so-called 'fiscal package', which provides for a...
Why do we insist on policies that 'sound good' but destroy the cities they aim to save? This article explores how virtue signalling and a focus on short-term optics over empirical results—such as rent controls and bans on foreign investment—consistently lead to housing shortages and higher prices, as seen in the Netherlands and Canada. It argues that the media often ignores the long-term consequences of these interventions, while government bureaucracy stifles the construction needed to solve the crisis.
The political intention was to limit rent increases and protect tenants. The first effect was immediate: the supply of permanent rental housing plummeted.
The divergence is “deep and insurmountable”, stated the PSD during this Friday morning's parliamentary debate, accusing the left of “throwing open the doors” to real estate speculation. For their part, the PCP and BE defended rent control and accused the Government of being more concerned with facilitating evictions than with lowering rents.
The right accuses the left of imposing rent controls, while the left accuses the right of total deregulation.
Mariona Segú, an economist and professor at CY Cergy Paris Université, also tells Expresso that “the best way to apply a tax on vacant properties is to create a non-residential tax.”
