House sales in Portugal fell in 2023, largely due to the scarce supply of affordable housing, along with high interest rates on housing loans and difficulty in saving money in the context of high inflation. But a turning point could be seen in 2024, as interest rates on housing are falling and there is new support for buying a home, such as the IMT exemption for young people.

According to a report by idealista, around 11% of the homes for sale advertised on their site in the first quarter of the year were on the market for less than a week. 22% of these houses were on the market between two weeks and one month, 24% between one and three months, 34% between three months and one year, and 9% for more than a year.


Algarve sales

Analyzing “express sales” - that is, residential properties that sell in less than a week, taking into account the length of time advertisements last - by district capital, it is in Faro that we find a higher percentage: 33% of the houses were sold quickly. The high presence of foreigners wanting to live in Faro may help explain these numbers.

The list of large cities with the highest percentage of express house sales follows Portalegre (25%), Porto (15%), Braga (14%), Évora (14%), Setúbal (14%), Vila Real (14% ), Castelo Branco (13%), Coimbra (11%) and Leiria (11%). Below the national average are Lisbon (10%), Viana do Castelo (10%), Ponta Delgada (9%), Santarém (9%) and Funchal (8%).

The capital of the district where there were fewer sales of "express" houses was Viseu (3%). In Aveiro and Beja, only 7% of transactions took place in less than seven days in the first quarter. In Bragança and Guarda, no house was sold during this period.