According to the latest data from Imovirtual, released on 18 February 2026, sale prices have skyrocketed 15.8% in the last year, far exceeding the rise in rents (+5.5%). This scenario has exacerbated the imbalance between housing costs and wages, placing districts such as Faro and Lisbon at the top of the financial pressure list, where it takes 27 and 26.2 years of income, respectively, to purchase a property.

In the rental market, the situation is equally critical, with Lisbon leading the financial effort, where the average rent absorbs 82% of the family budget. Faro (75.8%) and Setúbal (68.6%) follow on this list of high financial stress.

The analysis also reveals a marked divide between the coast and the

interior: while in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, rent consumes an average of 71.3% of income, in the interior of the country, this figure drops to 45.5%, requiring ‘only’ 9.7 years of salary to purchase a home.

Sylvia Bozzo, Marketing Manager at Imovirtual, emphasises that these figures confirm a growing gap between prices and incomes, noting that the pressure has already spread beyond the major centres.

Examples of this are the sharp increases in Santarém (+31.7% in sales) and Guarda (+28.9% in rentals). The picture for 2026 reinforces the urgency of strategic analysis by families in a market marked by strong regional asymmetries, where access to housing has become an unprecedented challenge in much of the country.