Portugal's immobiliare market: light at the end of the tunnel?

Tim Seconde was born in England and "landed" in Portugal in the summer of 2001. He worked for consultancies Knight Frank, Cushman & Wakefield and CBRE before taking up the position of Head of Capital Markets at RPE Portugal in 2015. The company was founded in 2010 in London and opened an office in Lisbon the same year. Thanks to his more than two decades of experience in national real estate, he has a comprehensive and realistic view of the current situation in the national market. In an interview with a journalist from idealista/news, he noted that the market may have bottomed out and now there is hope for a recovery. Investors are beginning to think about when and how they will enter the market and in which sectors. The market has been showing positive signals since the beginning of the year.

RPE Portugal

RPE Portugal is engaged in real estate brokerage and consulting. Unlike other consulting companies, RPE specializes only in the Iberian Peninsula and deals only with capital markets, i.e. buying and selling real estate on behalf of clients. The company specializes in shopping centers, retail parks, high street retail and supermarkets, as well as offices and logistics. The company is also interested in other types of assets such as student and retirement housing.

Significant transactions

RPE Portugal has already completed several significant transactions, including the sale of the Milestone building in Porto, which was sold for €20 million.

Predictions for the future

Tim Seconde notes that in 2024, 95% of RPE Portugal's clients are institutional, most of them foreign investors. He anticipates that this year will be "favorable", with deals happening just a matter of time. Investors will continue to look at Portugal as a country with great potential for investment. The current economic and financial situation is incomparable to the crisis during the Troika or the mortgage crisis. The country's location, security and climate are also attractive factors for foreign investors.

Logistics Sector

With regard to the logistics sector, many investors, both local and foreign, are interested in finding land for the construction of modern logistics platforms. However, there are some challenges, such as high land prices, that make building these platforms unprofitable. Land owners often demand double the land value, and investors realize that they should buy land at a better price.

Expectations for other sectors

Overall, the office and retail sectors are expected to start recovering gradually during the year. The hotel sector, although not the main focus of RPE Portugal, will grow strongly. The company is looking for land plots to build hotels and is likely to find a developer and a buyer. In general, the real estate market will stabilize and show more and more interest and better volume in the coming years.