Foreigners spent 895 million euros to buy a home in Lisbon in 2022.

Foreign private investors spent 894 million euros last year to buy 1,655 houses in Lisbon's Urban Regeneration Area (ARU), which covers all districts of the city except Santa Clara, Lumiar and Parque das Nações, data collected by Confidencial Imobiliário shows.

On Wednesday, in a press release sent to editors, the "market intelligence" unit points out that last year's data still shows a decline in both the number of properties acquired by foreigners - down 10% from the 1,845 properties acquired in 2021 - and the amount invested, which fell 7% to below the previous year's 957.5 million euros.

Private investors from 78 countries participated in Lisbon purchases (compared to 81 in 2021), with the average investment ticket in 2022 amounting to 4% of 519.5 thousand euros, compared to 2021, "continuing the continuous investment growth seen since 2016", according to a press release from Confidencial Imobiliário.

2021 was "the best year of international residential investment in Lisbon's ARU by amount, operations and nationalities, reflecting an anomalous second half of the year when record investment of €592.5 million reflected buyers' preliminary reaction to the then changes to the golden visa criteria, which were due to come into force from January 2022 and no longer cover Lisbon."

"The level of activity in terms of amount of investment, properties acquired and active nationalities, is slightly below the level of 2021, the latter being a record year affected by the situation in which there was a race for acquisitions to obtain 'golden visas', the rules of which were changed. Excluding this effect, we see that activity in 2022 exceeds all previous years, which means that international interest has not dried up after Lisbon ceased to be suitable for golden visas," comments the director of Confidencial Imobiliário, quoted in the same press release. Ricardo Guimarães also notes that "this can be seen in the continued high level of activity and the diversity of active nationalities, as well as the increase in international investment and a wider geographical diversity of investment, with many more areas outside the center attracting the attention of foreigners."

Looking at the nationalities of buyers, it can be noted that the top 5 has not changed since 2018, with the French in first place, followed by Americans, Chinese, British and Brazilians, who together accounted for almost 60% of international investments. According to Confidencial Imobiliário, Brazilians are the most active investors in transactions, with an average check of almost 700 thousand euros, while the French invested an average of 625.9 thousand euros per transaction.

When it comes to location, the Santo Antonio neighborhood was the leader as 138 million euros were invested in homes there last year, followed by Estrela (135.3 million euros) and Arroyos (97.9 million euros).

Foreigners maintain a stable market share, accounting for 37% of the total investment and buying 29% of properties in Lisbon's ARU in 2022, while investments from the Portuguese developed similarly, with a slight decrease compared to 2021. According to Confidencial Imobiliário, last year the Portuguese invested 1,513 million euros in the purchase of 4,090 residential properties, representing 4% less in value and 8% less in number of dwellings. They spent an average of 369.9 thousand euros per transaction, which means that foreigners invested 45% more per transaction, the same as last year.

In total, including foreigners and Portuguese, about 5,750 residential units were acquired in ARU Lisbon for a total investment of 2,407 million in 2022. Overall, residential investment in Lisbon ARU decreased by 5% in terms of investment volume and 9% in terms of number of transactions.