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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

Is that really a problem outside of London, SF, and one or two other super-appealing cities? Honest question, I have no idea.

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Lisbon, Porto and south of Portugal has seen a boom on foreign investment on properties. There are locations that if you email the agency, the first thing they mention is all the tax advantages of buying here for non foreigners. There is a whole upscale market for non-residents to park their money in real estate here.

When in Portugal I was really surprised to see most of the billboards in the Lisbon airport to be in... Chinese, advertising properties and apartments for sale. After some looking up I discovered that in Portugal one can acquire residency only by buying a property expensive enough.

Yep, they are called Golden Visas. If you buy a property more expensive than 500.000 Euros you may apply for it. There were a few nags and some corruption charges a while ago so not sure what the current status is.

There is also some tax break that if you had no income in Portugal in the last 10 years, you are eligible for a very reduced personal tax rate if you move to Portugal for X years so that also brings up rental and property prices.

Are those vacation residences, however? That's a bit different from parking money in expensive houses and never visiting.

Is there a difference (assuming the vacation residence isn't rented out daily/weekly)? Either way, prime real-estate is being tied up and made inaccessible to residents.

Related thought... I wonder how much AirBnB plays into this? I'm vacationing in Florence later this year and was surprised at the large number of available flats in the historic center. Not just rooms, or random apartments, but in some cases significant portions of buildings.

Vacation residents are made for that, they dont deprive the locals from housing. In contrast, rich people speculatively buying expensive real estate are just that, speculators.

It is a real issue, I was amazed to find places such as Milton Keynes were seeing foreign investment on new build - friend is renting there and his new build place is owned by a family based in the UAE

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