The Association of Real Estate Agents of Portugal (Asmip) said on Monday that it doubts the effectiveness of most of the Government’s measures to solve the housing problem, which have aggravated the lack of confidence of owners and investors.
“We do not doubt the good intentions of the Mais Habitação program, for which we made the due and detailed contribution in the public consultation, but we doubt the effectiveness of most of the measures,” Asmip said in a statement.
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For the association, the Government has tried to convey the message that the private sector has not been able to solve the housing problem, demand the intervention of the State, which, for Asmip, “is a fallacy”.
The problem, he continued, is due to “some economic factors” and “to the lack of confidence of owners and investors in legislative stability, which in the last decade has resulted in little investment in the construction and provision of real estate. for rent”.
“Unfortunately with the announcement of the program, and the respective measures, the lack of confinement was not overcome, on the contrary,” the real estate agents pointed out.
The association defended that the private sector should not be excluded as an ally in solving the problem, “especially since the 2,700 million euros for the construction of 26,000 subsidized homes, of which only 4,000 are in progress, they are a drop of water in the ocean of needs.”.
The association highlighted as positive the creation of an “Urban Simplex”, which allows expediting licensing, as well as the Lease to Sublease program, “despite the difficulty it will have to put into practice” due to bureaucracy.
However, it does not seem possible to Asmip to carry out the “gigantic task of coercive leasing”, although it welcomes the clarification of the exclusion of homes, autonomous communities and 165 municipalities with low population density.
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Additionally, the association spoke out against the end of the “golden visas”, which puts an end to a “good source of capital entry into the country.”
“In short, we want to believe in the effectiveness of the program, but due to the complexity of some measures, due to the insignificant amounts of support, due to the resistance of some municipalities to some of the measures, due to the bureaucracy that will put an end to some measures, but above all due to the urgency of putting enough housing on the market for needs, we do not think that These measures will achieve this objective in a useful time”, he concluded.
Source: Observadora
