According to Confidencial Imobiliário, a consultant, specialising in market analysis indicators, last year, real estate investment in ARU Lisbon reached a total of €5,200 million, corresponding to about 10,720 transactions, representing “a 12 percent decrease in volume invested and 18 percent in the number of transactions ”.
In 2019, the average amount per operation was around €478,400, €32,000 (+ 7 percent) more than the €455,600 invested in 2008 per transaction, added the consultant.
ARU de Lisboa excludes areas such as Parque das Nações, Laranjeiras or Alta de Lisboa, so, in this analysis, the consultant warned that it considered the transaction of all types of properties (from buildings to fractions), including the various segments (from residential to commercial, services or land), from all parishes in the city, excluding those in Parque das Nações, Lumiar and Santa Clara.
The report revealed that there is a group of six parishes that concentrate, among themselves, 60 percent of all real estate investment made in ARU in 2019.
The main investment destinations were the parishes of Santo António (€595 million), Santa Maria Maior (€553 million), Avenidas Novas (€551 million) and Misericórdia (€532 million), all raising more than 500 million.
The consultant includes in the group the parishes of Arroios (€453 million) and Estrela (€447 million), both with shares of 9 percent.
The remaining parishes reached invested volumes between €210 million and €24 million.
According to Ricardo Guimarães, director of Confidencial Imobiliário, “this slowdown was foreseeable, taking into account the historic peak reached in 2018, of around €6,000 million, and the fact that this volume consolidates two years of annual growth above 30 percent ”.
However, he stresses that, prior to covid-19, “some loss of market strength was beginning to be evident”, which he attributes to the “uncertainty that has been installed among investors following announced legal and fiscal changes”.
“In the current scenario of an abrupt and unexpected drop in demand, it may be a good opportunity to re-evaluate such measures”, which could “restore confidence to investors” and be “beneficial to mitigate this impact”, he considered, stressing that, “ with this pandemic situation, transactions have stopped ”, being“ inevitable that annual activity will be affected compared to 2019 ”.