A guide to your house hunting in Portugal

Changing your life and chose to Portugal to live and work? Put on the top of your priority list find both a job and place to stay.

First option when arriving to a new country is to stay at someone’s place while you find your own. When that’s not an option, there’s no other choice than staying at a hotel or guest house. These options are a good way out but won’t last for long. Nobody wants to feel like they are disturbing their friends, nor reach the middle of the month with no money on their account due to the hotel/restaurants bills.

The truth is that apartment rental in Portugal is extremely harsh and not accessible to everyone. According to several market studies the rents were never as high as right now in 2018, with this in mind our team built a few steps list with a few tips to help you find an affordable dream house in Portugal.  

Spend less time on the hunt and make it more efficient

Leaving your contact at the real estate agencies in the area you’re looking to buy or rent might be a good idea, although the real estate market in Portugal is very fast and you might lose many opportunities. Make use of technologies and do a research in three simple steps:

1) Use the following websites to search for apartments/rooms, for example:

https://www.imovirtual.com/

https://www.idealista.pt/

https://www.olx.pt/imoveis/

https://casa.sapo.pt/Alugar/

https://www.custojusto.pt/lisboa

Facebook groups or Facebook Marketplace can also be good places where to find your next place to stay.  There are specific rental groups on Facebook in several languages.

2) After starting our search, reduce it for what it matters the most for you:

– Start by setting the maximum you’re willing to pay (e.g. rental until 900€);

– Define the kind of house you’re search for, number of floors, zone (e.g. Alvalade, Campo Grande, Entre Campos, Sete Rios, etc) or any other characteristics that may filter and facilitate your hunt.

– Short your search: It’s not just about the value, the publish date its very important. Websites are not always updated. You might be trying to contact someone who no longer has an apartment and lose a lot of time in the process wrongly thinking “this is the one”. Some house ads in Lisbon are reserved as soon as they go live. Try to schedule an appointment as soon as possible and be prepared to give a signal (as an extra rent) to the property owner in order to reserve it.

– Identify the zone of interest (e.g. Lisbon or Oporto) with the characteristics that you’re looking for and subscribe it in order to receive notifications as soon as new job ads are published via email or even some applications on your smartphone might help as well.

3) Schedule an appointment to visit the apartment advertised, for safety reasons, in order to reduce the risk of the apartment not existing at all or any other kind of fraud. If it meets all your requirements proceed with a signal deposit to the owner to reserve your preference as soon as possible.

Always ask for the rental conditions

In many cases, they don’t come on the advertisements. The large majority will ask for some insurance (e.g. Pay slips, sponsors, extra rents or cautions, etc).

Pay attention and don’t forget other expenses apart from the rent itself. Make a conscious decision based on your salary. Don’t forget of your daily expenses, as well as utility bills in order to prevent a complicated situation in the future.

Check the zone where the apartment is located

Everything counts when searching a place to live. Besides what was already referred above, you should check if the place is near to subway/bus stations? Do you have utility stores nearby? Pharmacies, grocery stores, schools? Try to find the perfect place; your apartment is where you will save the memories of this new adventure!

Nowadays this task is simplified thanks to the technologies, but this makes the hunt frustrating, since everyone has access to it. Remember to be patient! Good hunting and remember, Portugal is one of the most welcoming countries in the world, see you soon!