The beginning of the year brought favorable signs for the housing shortage problem in the country. In the first quarter, 8801 new homes were licensed, a figure that corresponds to a year-on-year increase of 7.6% and 35.8% compared to the same period of 2019 (pre-pandemic). However, only 3881 new buildings were licensed for family housing, representing a year-on-year decline of 12.2%. From these indicators we can conclude that future housing projects will have a larger dimension.
The decrease in permits for new residential buildings is also visible in the total number of permits, which amounted to 6,246 in the first three months of 2023, 10.9% less than in the same period of the previous year. Contributing to this decline were new construction, which showed a year-over-year decline of 11.1%, and rehabilitation, which saw a 10.2% drop in licensed buildings, released yesterday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Of the total number of new permits, 81.7% is for homes and 76.1% for new construction.
An analysis by region shows that only the Algarve has a year-on-year growth in permitting for new residential buildings, of 14.9%. The north registers a decrease of 13.4%, the center of 9.9%, the Área Metropolitana de Lisboa (AML) of 16.9%, Alentejo of 7.8%, Madeira of 1.1% and the Azores of 31 .1%. The scenario is different with regard to the number of licensed homes. According to data from INE, the North is seeing an 8% increase in the number of licensed homes, the Center by 4.6% and AML by 5%. In the Algarve, the number of licensed fires increased by 77% and in Madeira by 35%. In Alentejo there is a decrease of 17.9% and in the Azores of 43%.
According to INE, the strong growth in the Algarve is justified by the permits for new homes in Loulé, Lagos, Albufeira, Portimão and Silves. In Madeira, the increase is due to the dynamism of projects in the municipalities of Câmara de Lobos and Funchal. The sharp drop in the Azores can be attributed to the base effect, as this region registered a 34.8% increase in the number of licensed homes in the first quarter of 2022, the institute justifies.
In the first three months of this year, the total licensed area in the country increased by 2.7% compared to the same period last year. But according to INE, in the monthly analysis, there is a trend of continuous reductions in building permits from October 2022. February was the month with the largest decrease, down 16.9% compared to the same month last year.
The statistics relating to the completed buildings in the first quarter of this year also show a decrease in this indicator. The decrease was 2.9% compared to the first quarter of 2022, but had increased by 9.4% compared to the first three months of 2019, to a total of 3674 thousand buildings. The new construction component accounts for 82.9% of the number of completed works, of which 77.1% is intended for family homes. The regions of Madeira, Azores, Alentejo and Center showed an increase in the number of completed buildings, while the variations in the other regions were negative.
Dinheiro Vivo journalist
Source: DN
