On the latest housing policy announcements in Portugal

 Let's spare the slogans. I have serious doubts the latest announcement on housing policies in Portugal will have a positive impact. The tax decrease is really low, the fixed housing rent pricing is a real risk for the supply side, trust in the State as a rent-paying entity is really low (after all, the State is the biggest debtor in the Portuguese economy, and often it carries overdue debt).

I believe these measures will actually have a reverse impact vs what's intended. There are four main jeopardies:

1) The usurpation of private property and the signal it sends to national and foreign investors (probably, the measures announced are actually not aligned to the Portuguese Constitution);

2) It fuels low quality building and locations (watch out for floods and earthquakes);

3) It prompts Public funds abuse through the simplification of housing sales to the State itself;

4) It risks being a strike on the tourism sector, through the short-term rental restrictions it will impose. This also poses a risk to urban requalification, as we have learned from the past 50 years in Lisbon and Porto.

Finally, the announcement doesn't target the two main housing problems in Portugal, the ones at the root of the problem:

- Tax and bureaucratic complexity (more than 50% of building costs are related to tax and bureaucracy, leaving only a 4% non-risk adjusted operational margin for promoters);

- Portuguese income is significantly below European averages (and this is far from being an easy-to-solve problem)