By Bart van Linden features@algarveresident.com
Bart van Linden is a director of Exclusive Algarve Villas, a local real estate company focused on selling high end properties and investment related real estate throughout Portugal.
The start of the New Year has brought back hope to a quicker than assumed recovery of the property market in the Algarve.
The buyers who are back on the market seem to have been following the prices for quite some time and realize we are at the bottom. Even the British with the unfavorable Pound/Euro rate are back on the buying trail. Investors realise real estate in Portugal has weathered the storm well and are back in the game.
Research within our network of real estate agents in the Algarve shows that it’s mainly the bottom end and top end of the market properties that are moving. Budgets below 350,000 euros and around the one million euro mark are moving. A problem remains though, as in the lower end of the market some buyers are still expecting too much and have unrealistic expectations.
In East Algarve, properties, mainly quintas, renovation villas and plots are hot in the region up to 300,000 euros. There is also movement in the lower priced apartments up to roughly 150,000 euros.
In Central Algarve, there seems to be a mix of properties which sell, such as well located large villas with quality fixtures and fittings, priced at around one to 1.5 million euros and lower priced properties up to 350,000 euros in the backland. The luxury areas in the Golden Triangle remain hot items for enquiries, however many buyers are looking for unrealistic discounts or have budgets that simply won’t get them what they want.
In West Algarve, there seems to be a shift on the west coast from high priced properties in urbanisations to properties in the countryside, budgets again mostly under 300,000 euros. Other properties which are hot are located near the sea front with budgets between 800,000 euros and 1.2 million euros.
What is not hot, according to our agents, are the holiday apartments priced between 200,000 and 500,000 euros – very few buyers are looking at these in all areas of the Algarve.
So who’s buying?
There are many local buyers on the market, some UK buyers are back and Irish buyers are sniffing at deals. The Dutch, Germans and Belgians represent an interesting market as well.
With discounts slowly drying up and regained and increasing confidence returning to the markets, developers and private sellers are less willing to slash prices to make a sale.
It’s time to move if you want a deal!
Source: www.BuyPropertyPortugal.com
Bart van Linden is a director of Exclusive Algarve Villas, a local real estate company focused on selling high end properties and investment related real estate throughout Portugal. He can be contacted on 282 353 019, 912 826 969 or email at info@eavillas.com
