Real Estate: the French, top foreign buyers in Portugal

According to Portuguese statistics, in the first quarter of 2016 the French have, for the first time, become the top foreign buyers in the country. They are ahead of the British and the Chinese.

The taste of the French for Portuguese real estate seems to continue and even expand from month to month. According to figures from the 1st quarter of 2016 published by the APEMIP (Associação dos Profissionais e Empresas de Mediação Imobiliária, the association of real estate professionals), the French are now the number one foreign clients.

Of the 25,000 transactions concluded in Portugal during the first quarter of the year, 20% involved foreign buyers. The French were involved in no less than a quarter of these 5,000 transactions, against 18% for the British and 13% for the Chinese. There were also 8% of Brazilians, 5% of Belgians and 4% of Swiss.

These figures show a marked increase in the number of French buyers, as in 2015 on the 107,302 annual transactions identified by the Portuguese Statistics Institute, the British were by far the top foreign buyers. Among the 22% of sales involving foreign investors, Great Britain accounted for 23% against 18% for China and 16% for France.