This Thursday, the Council of Ministers will approve a new housing legislative package with measures to both stimulate the rental market and streamline and stimulate construction.
The holding of a council of ministers dedicated to housing was announced in January by the Prime Minister, António Costa, during an interview with RTP, with the government assuming that affordable housing is one of the biggest challenges of today.
The details of the measures approved by the Council of Ministers today are not known, with the Prime Minister indicating that the package will include solutions to make more land available for housing, incentives for private construction and tax incentives for landlords to place homes. on the rental market, in addition to support for young people to rent a home.
According to Expresso, this Council of Ministers should announce a new permanent support mechanism for rents, the aim of which is to halt the deterioration of households’ effort rate when income falls.
The weekly newspaper also said the government was preparing to scrap the “gold” visas, with plans to create incentives, namely taxes, for owners to funnel homes that are in local accommodation and vacant into housing.
Strengthening land for housing and simplifying and streamlining urban permit processes – in a model similar to that of environmental permits – are other measures that should be part of this package.
According to the calculations of the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors (APPII), the final price of a house increases by about 500 euros per square meter for each year of waiting for the permit.
Another measure should be the promotion of housing cooperatives.
Before this Council of Ministers, the Minister of Housing, Marina Gonçalves, met with industry associations to hear their proposals.
This Council of Ministers takes place one day after the Assembly of the Republic debated a PCP bill for the protection of private homes, which was rejected with votes against by PS and IL, abstentions by PSD and Chega and favorable votes by BE, PAN and Free .
Under the measures of the diploma, the PCP suggested that the interest rate hike should not have as its “first impact” people’s loss of income, but instead focus on “shrinking banks’ profit margins”.
The PCP also wanted housing contracts to be renegotiated to limit the effort rate to 35%, which would extend the term for credit payments.
Source: DN
