There are news stories that, when I read them, make me go back to articles I wrote several years ago. The recent attention given to the demand for farms, estates and villas in the interior of Portugal by emigrants and other international buyers is one of those cases. Not because the trend is completely new, but because it confirms something I started writing about on my blog in 2018 and that I have been advocating for ever since.
Portugal had, and continues to have, an extraordinary opportunity beyond the coast. Space, nature, rural heritage, quality of life and an agricultural tradition that we have progressively left behind. For too long we have concentrated the real estate discussion in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve, as if the rest of the territory had little to offer to the international market. I have always considered this vision too limited.
Today we are beginning to realise that many buyers are not just looking for a house. They are looking for living space, privacy, contact with nature, the possibility of cultivating a small property or even developing an agricultural project. And this is particularly interesting because it represents a change in the way we look at the value of a property.
A farm is no longer necessarily seen as an old property, away from the big centres and with high maintenance costs. It can represent a life project, a long-term investment or the opportunity to recover an economic activity linked to the land.
Of course, not all buyers want to become farmers. But even the recovery of small properties, orchards, olive groves or abandoned land can contribute to returning activity to territories that have lost population and investment for decades. And when there is real agricultural ambition, the opportunity is even greater.
The profile of emigrants is also changing. The old house built in the village of origin, often intended for retirement or family holidays, is beginning to give way to more rational decisions. Location, access, energy efficiency, proximity to services and quality of property today weigh more than the simple emotional connection to the land. And the children of emigrants do not always intend to return to the place from which their parents left.
This transformation can open up opportunities to reclaim heritage that would otherwise remain empty or eventually degrade. But it also shows that the interior needs much more than competitive real estate prices.
It needs good access, health, telecommunications, services, rehabilitation capacity and conditions to develop economic activity. A farm can be extraordinary, but it will hardly attract permanent residents if the territory around it does not work.
There is still one issue that I consider fundamental. We must not turn the interior into a simple extension of the second home market on the coast. The real potential lies in being able to link real estate recovery with the revitalisation of villages, agriculture, local products, nature tourism and the creation of small businesses.
Portugal has something that many European countries can hardly offer in the same proportion: territory, diversity of landscapes, climate and the possibility of living with space and quality. We don't need to concentrate all our economic and real estate ambition in a narrow strip by the sea.
That is why this news makes me particularly happy. Not because I wrote about the subject more than eight years ago, but because they are finally beginning to give visibility to an opportunity that has always been in front of us.
The Portuguese interior does not need to be discovered. It needs to be valued, inhabited and economically reactivated.
Perhaps it is time for us to realise that the future of Portugal is not only built where the land ends and the sea begins. It is also built on the farms, villages and fields that we have left behind for too long.