Portugal has long been a top holiday hotspot for those seeking beautiful beaches, challenging walking breaks or just plentiful sunshine. The low cost of living makes Portugal a popular destination for family holidays, while the balmy climate attracts everyone from young couples to those enjoying their golden years.

Now, the Airmiles Value Tracker from Totally Money has revealed that Portugal’s Algarve is one of the top five best value golfing destinations in the world. The Algarve boasts an impressive number of golf courses, which range in quality and formality in order to provide something for both the amateur golfer and the wannabe pro.

afpop, Portugal’s largest foreign residents’ Association, was invited to Westminster recently by the Association of International Property Professionals (AIPP), to be part of the launch meeting of its initiative aimed at protecting potential property buyers from the UK.
At a meeting in the House of Commons, which was sponsored by David Amess MP, the AIPP began the process of requesting the creation of an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), which would address consumer protection issues in the foreign property sales industry.

Portugal, like every popular coastal tourist destination, finds its beaches packed with visitors from May to September. While the vast expanses of sand at beaches like Praia da Rocha have plenty of room for everyone, certain cove beaches, such as Praia Dona Ana at Lagos, can feel rather too crowded during the peak of the summer. During those times, many locals slip quietly away and head instead for some of Portugal’s most beautiful – and most tucked away – beaches.

Vila Real de Santo António (VRSA) is a small town in the east of the Algarve, right on the border of Spain, with the Atlantic coast to the south and the Rio Guadiana to the east. With a bustling town centre and lovely suburbs, this area is still lower-priced than other coastal towns in the Algarve and the cost of living is cheaper too.

Are you still looking for a bargain? As this year is approaching the end, this might be your last chance.

Book your visit now, and you could own your holiday home in the sunny Algarve by 2015, book your visit today.

Please find below a summary of Lagoa real estate, provided by Portalimo. This information was calculated based on the use of records of real estate in the indicated period. 

Objective statistics, Type, Area and Rates, refers only to the types of real estate Apartment, Villa and Townhouse.

Luís Lima, president of the Portuguese association for real estate agents (APEMIP), recently spoke of a lack of high value property for sale in parts of the Algarve, which could threaten the future of the Government’s Golden Residence Permit Programme: Meravista, the Algarve’s biggest property portal, disagrees.

The Government’s Golden Residence Permit Programme was launched in 2012. One requirement to qualify for a Permit is the investment of €500,000 or more in Portuguese property. So far, a total of 1,649 'Golden Visas' have been issued. Of those, 1,563 were via property investments and 80% of investors were Chinese.

During the past decade thousands of Britons purchased off-plan properties in Cyprus but they were faced with numerous problems including:

a) Sales initiated in this country do not appear to be regulated by this country;

b) Properties purchased remain in the name of the developer, and could potentially be re-possessed by the Bank that has financed the development; alternatively purchasers have been tied into loans, often in strong currencies that they have little hope of repaying;