The Edition 2024: Lisbon, Portugal - A Look at the City's Ongoing Transformation

We are pleased to introduce The Edition 2024, the latest magazine issue of JamesEdition, showcasing top luxury real estate destinations, including Lisbon — this season’s hotspot.

As spy thriller writer Angus Blair wanders around his newly hipster central Lisbon neighborhood of Cais do Sodre, he maps the city’s continuing regeneration by the meter. “Every year it moves a few hundred yards. Five years ago it was my road, which used to be in the roughest part of the seafront. Then it went down Boa Vista to Santos, which is the new up-and-coming area. You can physically track the transformation, and you see the digital nomad set everywhere,” he muses.

Lisbon Housing Market Overview

Lisbon’s ascent over the past decade has been extraordinary, from Europe’s most overlooked and undervalued capital to one of almost legendary status among young creatives and bright tech minds, along with a wide range of nationalities and ages seeking family life, flexi-working or retirement in a vibrant, sunny city.

Its untapped potential has most definitely been tapped.

Many of the crumbling palacios in its historic center have become boutique hotels or trendy holiday lets. There’s a flourishing culinary scene. It’s one of the world’s foremost start-up hubs. ‘Surf before work’ is a thing that people actually do. This is a city where many newcomers have discovered that a work/life balance really can exist.

Anthony Feraboli

Founder & CEO at Feraboli Real Estate

“The Lisbon market is relatively slow-moving. The high-end market is mainly reserved for foreigners moving to Portugal, so scheduling showings takes time as people have to travel to see a property. But truly exceptional and unique properties sell very fast.”

That has come at a cost to some, however. Lisbon’s property prices have rocketed by 120% since 2012, ever since foreigners began snapping up golden visas that gave them European residency in return for a €500,000 ($540,000) property investment and non-habitual residence (NHR) visas that offered low tax rates, provided they lived there for at least six months a year.

According to JamesEdition data, the average housing price in Lisbon in 2024 is $995,000 per listing or $6,900 per square meter.

How Global Buyers Shape Lisbon

Where foreign investors have profited, locals have been priced out. In Marvila, an old industrial riverside area is now home to the Hub Criativo Beato, a former factory that is now start-up central. It’s a location that, as recently as 2019, was known for its boarded-up shops and reluctance among delivery drivers to go there.

Now, the two investment and tax-friendly schemes for foreigners, which have contributed billions of euros to the national coffers over the last decade, have been abruptly ended. The Portuguese Government blames them for helping to fuel a national housing crisis.

So far, however, the loss of incentives to foreign buyers is having little impact on demand among Britons, Northern Europeans and Americans escaping their own possible election upheaval later this year.

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It’s a more muted prime market now, like so many around the world, following a period of high inflation, high interest rates, and widespread uncertainty, but Lisbon shows no sign of losing its luster. Digital nomads come in all guises, after all.

The fundamentals behind why Lisbon is popular haven’t changed. The quality of life is high, entrepreneurialism is still booming, the schools are very good, the cost of living is low, and property prices are still lower than other western European capitals.

It’s illustrative, too, of the level of demand largely from foreigners that prime long-term rents rose by 39% last year, faster in Lisbon than in any other of the 30 cities in Savills Prime Residential Index – though they still compare favorably at €5.32/m2 ($5.76/m2), which is around half the average prime London rental rate.

Among high-end buyers, the demand is greatest for turnkey or at least extremely well-renovated apartments in historic buildings. Rental returns are important too, although Portugal’s tough rules on short-term tourism licenses mean that it’s almost impossible to buy a property in the city center and let it out shortterm. One solution is for developers to renovate buildings with commercial licenses, which is paving the way for a new luxury lifestyle offering for Lisbon—the sort with rooftop pools and branded services.

Lisbon is a package that is hard to beat – which is why overseas buyers will be tracking the city’s continued regeneration for years to come.

For more insights on luxury real estate trends and this season’s hotspots, download The Edition 2024