Chinese investment in Lisbon drops by almost half in 2023

Lisbon is losing its attractiveness to Chinese investors. Last year, they only spent 54 million euros on purchasing housing in the capital, an amount that represents a drop of 46.5% compared to the 101 million spent in 2022, reveal data from Confidencial Imobiliário on the Lisbon market. Since 2020, when 183.8 million were disbursed, Chinese investment has been falling. Now, it represents only 6% of the total invested by foreigners in the purchase of houses in Lisbon.

Last year, these investors spent a total of 911.8 million euros on purchasing housing in the capital, a recovery of just 0.2% compared to 2022, a year in which there was a 5% drop.

Even so, despite the end of golden visas, investment remained at the level of 900 million, a figure that was reached for the first time in 2021, when it exceeded 957 million. The strong return of North Americans contributed to this performance, as they resumed their leadership of the nationalities that invested most in residential properties in Lisbon last year. These citizens invested 141 million euros in housing, an increase of 20% compared to the previous year.

The French lost pole position in the ranking, in a year in which they spent 116.4 million euros on residential real estate, a drop of 27.5% compared to 2022.
Also falling was investment from Brazil, which stood at 55.6 million, down 15% – occupying fourth place on the list of largest foreign investors – and from Germany, which totaled 54.2 million, a decrease of 10%. %, ranking fifth.

The British, along with the North Americans, were the only citizens in the Top-6 to increase their purchases in 2023. 113 million euros arrived from the United Kingdom, an increase of 49%, which elevated the country to third place in the ranking .

Last year, the investment made by Brazilians, Germans and Chinese doubled.
China, which once topped this list and was responsible for more than 20% of foreign investment in Lisbon, has lost importance and is now in last place.

The average ticket paid by foreigners for a house in Lisbon reached 578,196 euros last year, an increase of 8% compared to 2022. Freguesia da Estrela was the one that attracted the most investment, absorbing 155.3 million euros, followed by if Santo António, with 150.3 million, and Arroios, 113.7 million. In these three parishes, there was an increase in the amounts applied compared to 2022. Santa Maria Maior (74.5 million), Misericórdia (72.2 million) and Avenidas Novas (67.5 million) close the list of the six parishes that most attracted these investors, although in these three cases the value decreased when compared to the previous year.

Despite the interest of foreigners being more concentrated in the city center areas, there is a movement of dispersion towards the urban expansion territories of the capital, examples of which are Campolide, where investment reached 55.1 million, and Alcântara, which raised 31.7 million.