Teachers who apply for schools outside their areas of residence, in the hope of securing three full consecutive annual contracts that will allow them to join the staff, are faced every year with high prices and few rental offers in the Algarve.

“Most of the leases in the Algarve are unaffordable for the teachers, aggravated by the fact that many landlords limit the contracts until June”, said to Lusa Lídia Fernandes, a teacher placed this year in a school in Quarteira, in the district of Faro.

The 41-year-old teacher, from Ponte de Barca, in the district of Viana do Castelo, posted in the Algarve for the third consecutive year, once again faced the "dilemma" of finding a house, after the end of the contract for the apartment she had leased until month of June.

“This year I got an apartment in August, but on the condition that I only start to live there from the middle of September. It means I had to go around asking colleagues to let me sleep in their houses, until I could get into the apartment,” she said.

The constant search and change of house at the end of each school year “mess with the teachers’ lives, making them walk around with their house on their backs every year, even though they know they can stay at the same school the following year”.

According to Lídia Fernandes, the limitation of lease contracts to nine and 10 months is due to the fact that “owners want to have the apartment available for rent during the summer season”.

The secondary school teacher added that the situation worsens for teachers who are only placed in schools in the months of September and October, “a period in which it is more difficult to find a home within acceptable rent values”.

Nicole Esteves, who was posted to Aljezur two years ago, told Lusa that she was faced with “the low supply and high prices” in the Algarve rental market, where available accommodation can reach 800 euros per month.

Other teachers, contacted by Lusa, said that the only alternative they have to face the rental prices practiced in the Algarve “is to share a house with other teachers”.

In this situation is Carla Gomes who has been sharing, for two years in Portimão, a T2 (apartment with two bedrooms) “with another colleague, in a house with a contract renewable annually”.