This was one of the main conclusions from the Real Estate Meeting «Portugal as a real estate investment opportunity», an event organized by Observatorio Inmobiliario and Vida Imobiliária, from group Iberinmo. The meeting took place on the 10th of September at the Uría Menéndez auditorium, in Madrid, and was an opportunity to reflect over the Portuguese real estate market’s prospects, which is consolidating itself as a significant option for investors and developers.
At the occasion, Ricardo Guimarães, Ci’s director, contextualized that the housing prices’ indexes in Portugal keep growing at a rate of around 15% per year, a very significant number which shows that «Portugal is no longer a cheap investment opportunity, meaning the Portuguese market has matured and that comes with a price».
Ricardo Sousa, Century 21 Iberia’s CEO, pointed out that areas close to Lisbon, such as Amadora, Sintra or Odivelas, present some of the best investment opportunities, due to their accessibilities and urban development. On the other hand, Porto has more new housing construction opportunities. In the Algarve, the focus is on foreign investment.
For Nelson Rego, Managing Director at Prime Yield (Gloval), besides the office and hotel segments, the highlight should go to the industrial and logistic segments, which should be one of next year’s trends. It is, he believes, an unexplored opportunity.
The SIGI opportunity
Now that the Sociedades de Investimento e Gestão Imobiliária (Real Estate Investment and Management Societies) or SIGI (Portuguese REITs) regime has been created, there are new market investment opportunities, despite the fact that the Portuguese SIGIs will need a long maturation period to reach the same level as the Spanish SOCIMIs (Spanish REITs).
This was explained by partners at Uría Menéndez – Proença de Carvalho, Marta Pontes and Francisco Cunha Ferreira, who stated «we saw the success of the Spanish SOCIMIs and want it to be replicated in Portugal».
This event gathered on a round table representatives from ASPRIMA, APPII, Millennium bcp and Explorer Investments. Daniel Cuervo, ASPRIMA’s CEO, shared that he expects Spanish developers to continue investing in the Portuguese market, and assured that the appearance of the Portuguese SIGIs will boost the Spanish SOCIMIs. José Araújo, from the Real Estate Business Management Department at Millennium bcp, alerted for the fact that it is necessary to analyse «the type of guarantees the SIGIs are given, because until now, from the banks’ point of view, they were nothing transcendental».
But the opportunities are in Portugal. Pedro Seabra, Partner Real Estate at Explorer Investments, remarked that there is money and tenants to invest in Portugal, but the lack of speculative construction is delaying the market, particularly the office segment. Hugo Santos Ferreira, executive vice-president at APPII, highlighted the increase in investment in new construction projects within the metropolitan areas.