Latest available figures show the price of property rose by 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2019 and, according to leading property listing portal Idealista, during the first quarter of this year, prices increased in 15 of the country’s 24 districts.


Between January and March, according to Idealista’s Index, the value per square metre was set at €1,849.


Guarda is currently the city in Portugal with the lowest real estate prices, whereas the highest values continue to be seen in Lisbon, where the average price per square metre of a home is fixed at €3,002.


However, the biggest increase in prices was noted in northern Portugal, more specifically in Porto, where the value per square metre rose 4.6 percent, followed by Castelo Branco (four percent) and Madeira (3.6 percent).


In the Lisbon district, property prices appreciated 2.2 percent in the first quarter, while in the Algarve they increased 0.6 percent and in the Alentejo, 0.5 percent.

Lisbon, Porto and Faro, in that order, remain the most expensive places in Portugal to buy property.


Meanwhile, and also taking into account date for the first three months of this year, there was a drop in the number of AL (Alojamento Local, or local lodging) registration requests throughout the country – but most noticeably in Lisbon.


New registrations slowed across the country, but nowhere as much as in the Portuguese capital.


The number of new registrations for local accommodation in Lisbon plummeted 60 percent in the first quarter of 2019, compared to the same period of the previous year.


Industry associations have justified these figures with “market self-regulation”, which they claim has borne more weight on the downturn than the coming into force of new containment rules and more restrictive legisation.


Since October 2018, legislative changes to the AL local lodging regime have determined that councils and building condominiums may intervene in the authorisation of the activity, allowing the establishment of “containment areas” to “preserve the social reality of the neighbourhoods and areas”.


Meanwhile, real estate market analysts and consultants Confidencial Imobiliário, state that property prices in Portugal in 2018 finally caught up with the negative effects of the economic crisis which started in 2008.


The strong increases in property prices in the last couple of years has allowed the market to recover, and taking into account the evolution of inflation in the last pre-crisis year of 2007, the prices now stand at figures they would have had there not been a slump in the market, thereby recovering from losses experienced in the years following the 2008 global economic recession.


Figures at the end of December 2018 also revealed that property prices had climbed by 15.4 percent on the same month a year before.
House prices started recovering at the end of 2013 when values hit rock-bottom, and in the five years since, have soared by 46 percent, Confidencial Imobiliário said.