In a bid to support their battered property markets, southern Europe’s cash-strapped governments are wooing wealthy Chinese buyers by providing visas to those purchasing prime real estate, media reports said.
Portugal, Greece and Cyprus offer resident permits to foreign buyers, while Spain is likely to enact a similar measure.
Greece and Cyprus also expedite the permit processes for home purchases worth at least €250,000 (S$427,702) and €300,000 (S$513, 242) respectively, while Portugal’s programme has a minimum price of €500,000 (S$855,404).
However, buyers mostly taking advantage of this opportunity are the Chinese, due to their growing wealth and the strict property curbs in their home country.
“Property is what really attracts China’s rich,” said Nuno Durao, founding partner at Irglux, a unit of property agency Fine & Country in Cascais, Portugal.
“With just half a million euros, high-net-worth Chinese investors will get a good return on their property investment and at the same time enjoy a handful of EU benefits they don’t have in China.”
Some richer EU nations offer special resident visas to investors, but most require bigger expenditures and may not include real estate. For example, the UK issues visas to foreigners who can invest at least £1 million (S$2 million) in the country.
But these incentives are not as attractive as the ones offered in southern Europe, said Chinese investor Edmund Zhao, who bought a €700,000 (S$1.2 million) apartment in the coastal resort town of Cascais in Portugal last April.
Image: Property in Portugal
Nikki De Guzman, Junior Journalist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories email nikki@propertyguru.com.sg
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