Hi there,
In June 2022, while in Valencia, I contacted various real estate agencies and registered in the most important real estate portals in Portugal.
In addition, a friend from school gave me the contact of the real estate agent with whom she had bought her house in 2020.
Many real estate agents responded to me and most of them spoke perfect English and Spanish.
In addition, through WhatsApp I began to organize myself with Rui Rocha, the agent that my friend had recommended to me. At that time, he was working for the MaxVillage agency.
We wanted a house that was close to Porto and well connected to public transport. Also, if possible, we didn’t want to have neighbors.
At first, we thought it would be a house on the outskirts, but we ruled it out because as we live traveling, it is more comfortable to be in a city than in the middle of nowhere. Also, we didn’t want to be forced to buy a vehicle.
Initially we set ourselves a budget between 250k and 300k, but later we lowered it to a maximum of 200k (including taxes, furniture, and possible reforms).
I must point out that the process of searching for a home from Spain was easy.
Something important is that in Portugal the real estate agencies collaborate with each other and a single agent can manage all the visits with the different agencies.
Ultimately my requirements were:
- House. We didn’t want an apartment for the world.
- That it had no neighbors.
- Well connected with public transport.
- Have a small garden/outdoor area.
- That did not need renovations.
- The kitchen should be separated from the rest (no open space).
- Ideally two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
After a month researching and looking at properties in Porto and nearby cities, we organized ourselves to visit 6 houses at the end of June.
This is how the visits were organized:
June 28th
The first visit was a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a small garden in the Campanhã area. It is no longer published.
I loved this house and I already had in mind how I was going to fix it. When I spoke with my friend, she told me to explore all the surroundings well since in Porto in all the areas there were social buildings that were full of gypsies and that was a big problem.
As it was the house that we liked the most, on June 27 we went at night to explore the area. On the corner there was a bar full of screaming drunks, the street was full of abandoned and open warehouses that they must have gotten into to get high, and right behind the house, there was a social building.
Our hearts broke because we went with the idea that this was the house we were going to buy, and we started thinking that maybe we would return to Valencia without liking any property.
That same night I canceled the visit.
This house was in a corridor between buildings and had no windows on the top floor. Also, the price was excessive for what the property was. I wouldn’t have paid even half.
https://www.idealista.pt/imovel/32036028/
This house positively surprised us since the photos were very poorly done and it was not appreciated how it was. It had a garden in the front and a large one in the back.
The bad thing is that it stunk of dog, and it was very dirty, the bathrooms needed renovation, in the main room there was almost no space to walk, and the living room was extremely small, so it would have needed renovation (not even a sofa would fit).
Even so, we left it as a possibility if they lowered the price considerably (and if we couldn’t find anything better).
June 29th
This is the house we bought.
It had the best location since we only had neighbors on one side. In addition, it gave the feeling of being in a village. The bus station was 2 minutes away and the metro station was 20 minutes walking.
The house wasn’t perfect, but it was the closest to what we were looking for.
This house looked good in the photos, but it was much worse in person. They had done a horrible renovation and the spaces were poorly distributed. Also, the lady had too much furniture and there was almost no room to walk.
The bathroom was microscopic and had damp. In addition, the upper room was climbed by a very uncomfortable wooden staircase and the room was useless, it was almost like a closet.
The house cost 199k and it had to cost half.
Finally, we visited a house of which I did not post a link or photo because it was no longer published when I wrote the post.
It was 165k and it looked beautiful in the photos, but it was horrible. The first thing is that everything smelled like dog excrement. The only patch of yard was completely covered in dog droppings.
The house was dirty, and the walls were already broken. The spaces were poorly distributed and in the rooms and bathrooms there was no space to walk.
Also, the area was ugly, and it had a soccer field right next to it, so we were going to have noise.
We told our agent Rui Rocha that we wanted to buy the first house that we had visited that day and he oversaw making all the arrangements with the Remax Rubeas real estate agency, which was the one that had the property. We returned to Spain since we had the apartment booked until the end of September.
In the next post I am going to tell you about the process for buying the property and the horrible experience we had with the Remax Rubeas real estate agency.
Consider if you are going to buy a house in Porto:
- If you buy through a real estate agent, only the seller pays a commission.
- The city has many social buildings that are normally inhabited by gypsies. Even if the area is good, if you have these buildings nearby, it will be full of garbage, and you will probably have problems with noise and crime.
- My friend also warned me that Brazilians are lousy neighbors. So, you need to check this out if you like peace and quiet.