It feels like the biggest struggle in the Algarve for foreigners is to find long term rental accommodation. When you couple this with the D7 visa requirement for proof of long term accommodation, you’ll find a serious lack of supply in 2022. Throw in a highly seasonal tourist season where local owners are trying to recoup their losses after COVID by selling short term weeks on their accommodation and you’ll be looking at a tricky situation.
So what can you do to find long term rental accommodation in the Algarve? Sadly it requires a lot of hard work.
How to find long term rentals in the Algarve
Here are my three suggestions:
- Scour the online portals for possible rental homes. I have listed quite a few below.
- Put yourself out there in the relevant Facebook groups. It seems like there is a group for every village these days. If you don’t like Facebook create a new account and weigh up which is more important, a new home or your privacy.
- Physically go to the town you have picked and speak to anyone you can who may have a friend, sister or cousin who is renting out their home. Speak to real estate agents, waiters, hotel staff, shop workers etc.
It’s hard work, but if you do all those steps fairly diligently you may be moving in much sooner than you think. If you have any other ideas, let me know, I’d love to hear them.
A list of resources follow below the video.
HELPFUL RENTAL LINKS
…as discussed in the video
Rentals (and purchase) platforms
https://www.era.pt/
https://www.green-acres.pt/
https://casa.sapo.pt/
https://idealista.pt/
https://www.imovirtual.com/
Shorter term rentals
https://www.flatio.com/
https://www.airbnb.com/
Facebook Groups
https://www.facebook.com/groups/algarveaddicts
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LongTermRentalsAlgarve
https://www.facebook.com/groups/114052362542035
Also try
https://www.algarvelonglets.com/
I have been holidaying in Portugal since 2009 and hope to retire there when l retire in 2 years time. I have mainly been to the Algarve/ VRSA/Alentejo/ Elvas/ Beja/ Evora/ Aljezur/Faro/Lagos/ Castro Verde/ Mertola/ Paderne/ Estoi/ Almodovar /Setubal/ Segress/ Sesimbra/ Silves/ Lisboa and many more places. It’s a beautiful country. I next want to visit Porto. I speak some Portuguese (enough to get by with). I just adore the country.
Flying to Lisbon on May 4th, and driving to Algarve on May 6th. Trying to figure out where to buy a condo to rent for the summer and live at in the winter… Starting in Portimao and heading to Tavira area over 8 days…
We were able to rent an apartment in the Algarve beginning in April of 2022 without too much hassle. Based on our experience, the best advice I can give is… do as much work as possible before you begin looking for a place.
We obtained our NIFs ( tax ID numbers ) and opened local bank accounts before coming to Portugal using the Bordr.io service. The NIFs are required when you sign a lease ( contract ) and the bank account you will use to setup direct monthly transfers to your landlord. These transfers are very easy to do in Portugal.
We then spent a month traveling from town to town in the Algarve staying 2 – 3 nights in AirBNBs. This gave us a great feel for living in – not just visiting – most of the major communities. Once we narrowed down where we wanted to be ( Loule or SBdA in our case ) only then did we start pouring over the listings on Idealista and other real estate websites.
We scheduled a handful of viewings of apartments that interested us. When we saw the first place we liked, we followed advice we had gleaned from one of Nick’s videos; i.e. when an opportunity presents itself, take it!!!
We are incredibly happy with our apartment. I hope our story is useful to every one looking to relocate to Portugal.
One other thing… we had cash ( in Euro notes ) to cover the first months rent and security deposit and found this to be very welcomed by our landlord.
Super useful! Thanks so much for sharing David. Hopefully we’ll meet in the street in São Brás some day.
Hi Nick,I’m Portuguese but I’ve been living in Belgium since I was 4 years old,today I’m 57,alone in the world and I and my brothers own 3 small houses in the Serra da Estrela region.But I allways dreamth of living and retireing in the Algarve,but as you must know it’s not easy these days.I’ve worked in IT for some 10 years,I just rolled into it by coincidence because I’m a natural self made polygloth.I worked as a helpdesk consultant for EDS and the Belgian Railways,and did the support in 6 languages. I will be retiring in 3 years.I took care of my parents the last 8 years but sadly in 1 year they both died ,my mom sadly died 3 weeks ago.So i have nobody left to remain here.Perhaps you know of some oportunities to find a job in the IT area,I could literally leave tomorrow.I discovered yourBye and btw channel by accident today.I look forward to hear something from you. bye Carlos
Coming for a scouting trip in 2023 to relocate to PT. Should we expect to move frequently from rental to rental rather than maintaining a base for example( for 1-3 months) due to landlords wanting to rent short term ? What do you recommend ? 🙁 🙁
Hi Linda, if its not summer, you should be able to find a 3 month rental. The tricky thing to find is a 12 month rental.
Hi Linda, your post was a while ago but did you ever find a rental in the Algarve. Was it short term or long term? Was it easy? Did you have to move from one to another? Or was it just not practical? We are moving to Algarve from UK and just wondered about your experience. Thanks. Steve.