In the initial iteration of the golden visa the easiest qualification was to purchase a home that in an urban area( in other words where most educated foreigners and locals wanted to live) had to be valued at 500k.

Now you can make the claim a lot of 425-450 homes were now worth 500k.so prices on the higher end were driven marginally higher. However with 70 percent of the population making between the minimum wage and 1,400 per month you can make the claim not to many Portuguese could afford these homes to begin with. And remember in the entire length of golden visa by home investment scheme only approximately 12k visa were issued. And back in 2010-12 and western recession the house I purchased beautiful home near a nature reserve stood empty three years, there were no buyers. What happened during this time was 1. the advent of short term rentals. 2. Inheritance laws based on the old napoleonic codes with 5-6 individuals inherit a home and everyone has to decide what to do with it. 3. A country that believes tourism and canned fish can create jobs( it can just not well paying) and the other service jobs like in many countries could not compete with union industries of which Portugal had little. Like South Korea much local wealth Was in the hands of 400 or so wealthy families that went back century. This money is in Zurich and Malta.

So the Solution even pushed by the government was to not try to create wealth where investment opportunities are hampered by inefficient government and a legal system slower than an elephant and create a remittance economy like the Philippines where nurse moves to California and makes 10k a month not 800.

Elon Musk was considering a large battery plant in Portugal but I bet it only took five Portugese educated engineers to tell him to stop playing with there retirement 401k funds like that.

Does it not seem odd that a country with an educated workforce, low salaries close to the rest of Europe could not develop? At the end of the iron curtain Polands GDP was roughly the same as Portugal’s in 1990. It is now 4 times greater.

To the north of Lisbon there is plenty of land that homes for moderate income people could be built. But this could only happen with tax incentives, investment income and pressure on the big builders most Portuguese would recognize some of those family names.

Through out history Europe has always had scapegoats for there issues. It’s easy to project onto others when the problem really is much closer to home.

In my little shopping mall there are now many of those phone and computer repair small businesses. Most all of the workers are now Ukrainian. Many fruit pickers and agricultural workers are not Portuguese and live multiple people to a room and minimum wage pay very little or zero in come tax.

However all the problems of the country can be placed squarely on retired Nordic, Northern European or Americans? That’s a pretty poorly thought out and factually incorrect reasoning. I find Portugal is a country that has a very hard time in accepting their own economic predicament.But who knows maybe Portugal will be the first in making a social welfare, statists economy, without the tax base to do significant wealth transfer to work simply there not Sweden, but I have to admit they have not given up.