Renting a house in Lisbon and Porto became 10% more expensive in three months. New leases registered an unprecedented increase in the third quarter of this year compared to the values used between April and June.
According to Ricardo Guimarães, director of Confidencial Imobiliário, “none of these cities has seen a quarterly increase of such magnitude before.”
The SIR-Arrendamento Residential Rent Index shows that new leases signed between July and September of this year in Lisbon reached an average of 16.8 euros/m2 and 12.6 euros/m2 in Porto.
“In any case, these are unprecedented levels,” Confidencial Imobiliário said in a statement to the press.
For Ricardo Guimarães, this increase is directly related to the government’s decision to limit the rent increase to 2% next year until 2021, in order to mitigate the impact of the rise in the cost of living on tenants.
“The timing of this increase in the current situation and the fact that it is occurring simultaneously in both markets suggests a position of owners regarding the rent update limit for the next year,” Ricardo Guimarães said in a statement. .
According to him, “this unprecedented quarterly increase of 10% could be a way to cover inflation through the new business, in anticipation of the losses that could arise from the inability to do this in the current contracts due to the caps. imposed on the updating of rents.” “.
It should be remembered that if the government had not decided to intervene, the rent increase in 2023 would be 5.43%, according to the average inflation recorded in August without housing, which determines the coefficient for updating contracts. .
In the state budget for 2023, the director of António Costa has decided to compensate landlords for this measure with benefits in the field of IRS and IRC, which should cost about 45 million euros.
Rents on new contracts in Lisbon have been rising since mid-2021, after two years of decline. Quarterly changes were around 2.5% but have now increased to 10%.
Confidencial Imobiliária points out that “this trajectory has had a strong impact on the intensification of the year-on-year change in rents, pushing this indicator from negative territory (-6.0%) in the 3rd quarter of 2021 to 23% in the 3rd quarter of this year” in the capital.
In Porto, the recovery in rents started at the end of 2021, after a year of declines. Since then, quarterly changes have always been above 3.5%, culminating in a 10% increase in the last quarter.
At the end of 2021, rents in Porto registered a 2% year-on-year decline. The trend reversed, with a year-over-year increase of 24% in the third quarter of this year.
Sónia Santos Pereira is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
