House prices in Portugal have skyrocketed - the median value of homes sold has risen 7.6% in one year.
Luís Lima, the head of the nation’s estate agents association, APEMIP, says he is worried about the ever-rising prices, especially in city centres.
"No one can pay the prices being asked in city centres. What happens is that people are going to the periphery and this is causing housing stock in the periphery to run out and prices also are increasing," warns Luís Lima, adding,
"Things will not always grow ... one day they will fall and I do not know any country in the world where prices grow, grow and one day do not fall ... "
Luís Lima has mentioned the possibility of "real estate bubbles in the centres of the big cities," such as Lisbon and Porto and blames foreigners, “speculation will kill us.”
Lima, his grasp of economics and reality now long departed, said that there should be only one kind of property valuation, "There is an evaluation by banks for the granting of credit, there is an assessment made by the tax authorities for the payment of taxes ... It would be important to have only one kind of valuation in the real estate market that would serve everything."
