All Forum Posts by: Riaan Knoetze

Wow; This thread has grown a lot over the last few years! I thought I'd share some more connections now that I've actually been living here for a while 🙂

There's a Portuguese property investment group that's quite active on WhatsApp: Portugal Property Investment & Development - Investir em Imóveis. From what I can see, they're mostly focused on flips. Here's the link to join the discussion group (note: This isn't my group; I'm just a lurker there).

Then there's also another, even more active, group for STL-style investments (locally known as Alojamente Local): AL English. Here's the link to join that discussion group (note: As above, this isn't my group either).

@Mike Lambert @Rui Dias Costa,

Can you maybe share a high-level list of the proposed AL changes? The biggest ones I'm aware of include:

* Limit the availability of new AL licenses to only interior districts;
* Increase the tax rates for AL;
* Force a review of existing AL licenses in 2030;

President is deciding tomorrow (published on Monday) on whether he'll veto the Mais Habitação bill - https://observador.pt/2023/08/18/marcelo-decisao-sobre-mais-...

Also worth keeping an eye on this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/762040045672380. Plenty of information there STRs, LTRs etc (especially at the tactical level linked to government reporting, licensing, taxes. --> It's not my group though, just found it useful)

Hey Chris!

I've never been to Porto Santo but Madeira is incredible - it's what drew us to Portugal originally. There are a bunch of legislation changes afoot for both STR licensing and LTR caps. I definitely recommend taking a look at those first (You can google "Mais Habitação" to get started).

In terms of contacts that are investor friendly:
* Ivo Sousa from Remax (in Madeira)
* Rui Magalhaes from DMA Tax Accountants (in Cascais but with experience in cross-border tax affairs, great work ethic and a solid command of English)

These folks aren't on the forum but can be found easily through Google.

In terms of STR data: AirDNA is a good starting point 🙂

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 Hey @Alistair Toffoli - I live in Lagos and while I don't have any investment properties here, I've got a few friends that do. Happy to answer any questions you might have 🙂

 This is fascinating - I live in one of the cities mentioned here and invest in the other 🙂. Out of interest, @Benjamin Werner can you share the source of that data? Would love to have an easy-to-reference link in future.

Considering these COVID-times and policies around group sizes, how does everyone feel about a Zoom meetup?

How is everyone's property investment(s) going now that we're a few months into COVID-19?

@Ricardo Matos / @Mark C. - Do you have any links I can look at from government sources about the golden visa closure? I'm asking as the official one I have from SEF still seems to show that they're accepting new applications - https://www.sef.pt/en/pages/conteudo-detalhe.aspx?nID=21

Also, an updated (albeit unofficial) source doesn't mention anything about a closure at all - https://www.expatica.com/pt/moving/visas/golden-visa-portugal-1042263/

I am, however, aware that some regions have been removed - Notably Porto and Lisbon - although the legislation behind that hasn't been ratified as far as I know. For what it's worth, the first I heard about that was on Idealista: https://www.idealista.pt/en/news/legal-advice-portugal/2020/03/09/536-portugal-ends-golden-visas-lisbon-and-porto

Do you have any links where we can read up more on that (Even if it's in Portuguese)? Also, is this based on Portuguese law or just banking policy? If it's the latter, refinancing from a banking institution would be determined by the location of the bank rather than the location of the property methinks.