Buying a Property in Portugal for the First Time

What's your name, where are you from, and what do you do?

My name is Afrora Striniqi and I am originally from Albania. I am perhaps one of those odd “stereotypes” that perfectly matches the name of your channel having lived in 8 different countries and a dozen cities, for the last 23 years, basically throughout my entire adult life, chasing educational and career opportunities, destination after destination. I currently reside in Copenhagen Denmark and have a fulfilling career as procurement professional of medical supplies with one of the most prominent UN agencies headquartered there.

When did you first start traveling to Portugal and when did Portugal become a destination that you wanted to live in?

Curious as it may sound, my first travel to Portugal is linked to another travel – as probably all our most interesting journeys start.

In November 2019 I travelled to Berlin, where I met a couple living in Lisbon: he was a renown Portuguese doctor and she was a successful German manager. After a few conversations with them, I was enchanted. Portugal had not been in my radar until then, at least not as much. Little did I know that it would become one of my most profound obsessions. In a good way 😊

Upon return to Denmark I reconnected to a few Portuguese acquaintances, and so I started to experience bits and pieces of my new fascination by participating in the events of the Portuguese Danish Association in Copenhagen …

…until I decided to visit Lisbon for the first time in March 2020, right before the COVID lockdown. I think this became the decisive moment: a sense of familiarity made its nest in me even though my lungs were not able to fully inhale the Tejo’s spring breeze - literally, because at the time I did have a serious cold that could at any moment be mistaken for COVID (only that it wasn’t).

Lisbon was foreign, yet nostalgic, in places primitive, and in others highly sophisticated. It curiously felt very close to me, until I realized that its landscape reminded me of Istanbul, the palms and 2-story villas of Tunisia, the sunny streets carried with them some kind of “male d’Africa”, its terraces and rooftops a vast liberating horizon of the Northeast in the USA, and most importantly its people reminded me of the modesty, warmth, passion and authenticity of my own people.

This first visit was only an extended weekend. I had to return to Copenhagen to start my new job. Then came the lockdown, then the long stressful hours of hard work to help avert the pandemics (my professional role called for that), then lots of thinking and rethinking of the new reality we were all faced with…

That’s when my obsession for Portugal started to run wild – literally 😊

The fado sounds of Amelia Rodriguez and the soundtrack of the movie Night train to Lisbon played incessantly and filled with soft sounds the brutal, cold, surrealist lockdown. It became a platonic love as I was unpeeling layers of a reality to which I could belong by pure whim, by absolute free choice, different from all the other destinations. There was no school, no training, no job, no love waiting for me in Portugal. It was simply my newly found self!

But there was a fortuitous encounter, whose importance I would come to understand several months later. It was the kite runner holding the nearly invisible thread of the kite of my dreams flying high while still holding it firm to not crash on the ground. This kite runner was Rafael from Made of Lisbon.

In as much as my imagination was feeding the dream, the signs were clear that it was the moment to get to business and start a proper research.

Why did you choose Alentejo of all regions?

After my first trip in March 2020, I came back to Lisbon in September 2020. That was the time when I decided to “test” the capacities of my aspirational new place. Having had some curious medical service experiences in the past decade, I decided to try them in Portugal. The experience couldn’t have been better! A beautiful surprise for which I was not even prepared. This gave me a new window of perspective not only on the country, but also on the people and my desire to connect with them, and if they would accept me, to possibly live among with them.

I also wanted to experience how I feel – in general – what sentiments Portugal would provoke in me, whether it would speak to me and how.

Paradoxically, there was something both beautiful and dramatic, complex and dark. A lot of mystery. And I could have backed off at the very moment that I perceived this, but I chose to persist.

I won’t go without saying that some parts of Lisbon – the city and the greater Lisbon region – intimidated me in different ways. Some neighborhoods displayed stark differences between each other, some were new spots, but nothing exceptional, nothing that I could not replicate elsewhere. Cascais was too posh, and expensive, Sintra magical, but with a false proximity to Lisbon.

In social media forums, I was seeing a lot of posts on Southern coast of Portugal. Several discussions with Portuguese people revealed their mixed feelings about the region – appreciation for the natural beauty but some reservation about the overestimation of this region by expats, almost amplifying and perpetuating the international “ignorance” about other beauties and riches of Portugal.

I have to say that this is where my finances started to intervene as well, in a positive way 😊

By that time, I had also drawn the line of how far north I wanted to go in Portugal. The pictures of Coimbra, coastal areas near Porto and Porto itself were mesmerizing, but the weather, especially for the northern options, was the main factor that put me off.

And that’s when I knew where I needed to be – in one of the unusual, unexplored, less known places, while still maintaining a reasonable proximity to Lisbon.

Alentejo was the perfect choice: laced with historic villages, with a strong bond to Portugal’s most colorful and contrasting history, in the culinary corridor with Spain, the cradle of unique crafts, bathed in a generous sun, filled with herbal aromas evaporating under the heat and then taken up by the sunset breezes. It started to feel like home!

How did you identify a place to buy? What was the process like acquiring a place and now renovating it?

Many elements came together at the same time to culminate in the decisive moment to buy my property in Arraiolos.

By end of 2020, my research had seriously intensified. Let me be specific here: the actual search of properties was entirely in the hands of MoL. I was only screening idealista and closely monitoring the properties listed in different forums in order to enhance my understanding of prices and reasonableness of offers that were available in the market. By January 2021, I knew I had to decide very quickly if I wanted a good deal. This is what one is usually advised also by real estate agents (which is something that I have myself done for a few months many years ago). COVID was an additional spin that just added the right amount of pressure to benefit from a buyer’s market. I also knew that if I wanted to extract more value, I had to go for a renovation – putting more value added to the property, on top of tailoring it to my own taste, instead of getting something ready to move in.

By that time, I had carefully analyzed my finances, considered the adjustments I had to make in order to afford the decision of acquiring a property.

Having physically relocated through nearly 40 places since I started my expat life, I knew such an important decision needed to be hard and fast, otherwise it would take forever. I didn’t want the doubts to crop up unnecessarily and taint the alternative reality I had erected in my mind.

Then this opportunity in Arraiolos came by: right in the city centre and close to the city’s touristic and cultural landmarks, very much at the heart of the community and yet sufficiently private, the overall space it had, the maze of rooms, the arches on the ceilings, the small steps to navigate from a room to another, the mystery of not being able to understand fully the floor plans due to the differences in floor levels 😊, the castle view from the veranda, the rose bush and the lemon trees in the garden…

So, aside from having the potential of becoming kind of a mansion for me, it felt homey, and it was speaking to me from the moment that I saw the videos and the pictures, and this feeling only amplified when I saw it with my own eyes for the first time in May.

I had the luxury of not having to toil through any of the steps of the process. The biggest credit goes to MoL. It was like having extra eyes and extra brain, extra feet and hands, available to me the whole time without having to worry of faux pas. As soon as I had realized that we shared similar values, both personal and professional, I was confident that our collaboration was headed to a success.

Here I must open parentheses to say that it would have been perfectly possible to acquire a property by walking into a real estate office in Lisbon. I am sure that the service would have been very professional. However, what distinguishes MoL is their business model and their passion, which suits best to expats who are not able to spend extensive time to hunt for a property and that need a strong local presence to deal on their behalf. MoL’s team embodies the unconventional, non-mainstream perspective deeply rooted in the Portuguese culture with a fine modern spin, always seeking the effective, efficient and essential for the commitment they have undertaken.

The process of acquiring the property ran parallel with my move to a smaller apartment within Copenhagen. So, there was a lot of multi-dimensional coordination involved, which I have to say, was overwhelming. Finances, lawyers, moving companies, travel, including having to learn laws, rules, procedures, undertake some negotiations… At some point it felt as if things were taking too long: for example, I was able to obtain the PoA apostilled within 24 hrs in Copenhagen, but then the envelope took nearly a week to be dispatched within Lisbon.

There was an extensive back and forth with the lawyers on the CPCV to comply with the requirements of my credit institution and some impatience from both the sellers’ side and myself when this first milestone was concluded started to build up as we were waiting for the finances to be sorted. Luckily, from then on, it only took about 10 days, and this was a great relief. The whole process from the identification of the property until signature of the deed took exactly 3 months – what would have usually happened only pre-Covid, all else equal.

Renovation is just about to start, and here the scenarios are numerous. Again, still depending to a certain extent on the finances. That said, I adore the uniqueness of this property in every sense and therefore the renovation will not be revolutionary. The concept is “evolutionary” instead, in the sense that it will put forward the unique aspects of the property as typically Alentejan, while modernizing and contemporizing it.

What have been some of the mistakes you've made along the way?

I wouldn’t call them mistakes, but rather mishaps or misjudgments, which got corrected on the way.

At some point, I was obsessed with the thought that I was already late for such a project. But then, if the best timing for this decision was yesterday, then the next best timing is today. So, I went with it.

Alternatively, I could have waited a bit longer and demanded a more extensive market research – basically, being more “scientific” about it. Yet, I am not sure this brings any substantial benefit except more value erosion of cash you hold in the bank - without counting the expenses for services that are carried out in the meantime. The market research may bring some reassurance in terms of rationality of the decision, but overall, the benefit is marginal in a country like Portugal. Plus, it will not capture the emotional element involved in taking such a decision.

The only current hurdle that I should have probably given a more thorough consideration is accessibility. This still adds to the charm of the adventure in which I have just embarked. Practically speaking, I’ll have to make further lifestyle adjustments such as consider driving more or even learning to ride a motorbike so I can easily reach Arraiolos once I land in Lisbon airport.

What are you most excited about to live in your new house and in Alentejo?

I spent the weekend of the carpet festival 8-13 June in Arraiolos, thinking that this was a unique opportunity to experience and explore my new city at its best. I was not disappointed! And even though my new home was empty (with only running water and electricity), the feeling of being in it was priceless. It was a unique feeling that I cannot describe, something that I had never experienced before.

In a way I feel that my physical home is also calling me to bond with its land, and it is so far succeeding it handsomely 😊

An additional perk is that this particular city in Alentejo, Arraiolos, is well-known for its unique old craft of making stitched carpets. Being a handcraft amateur myself, I am very intrigued, and it won’t be long before I start to explore new opportunities in this particular craft once I get further settled and get to mingle with the local artisans.

I am yet to experience what some Portuguese friends have told me: “Alentejo is not for everyone” referring to the very hot summers and the very cold winters.

So far, I agree with them: Alentejo is not for everyone – because you have to drop at least some guards and let it take some control over you and surprise you, instead of vice versa. Look for what you were not exactly looking for, which would turn out at least as good!

Why do you think others should consider Alentejo?

Acquiring a property in a foreign country is already a bold decision. If one crosses that frontier, already considering Alentejo becomes a fairly viable option.

I would say, let yourself be surprised. A lot of Alentejo’s richness is invisible – you have to discover it and you have to love a slower pace. If you were to oscillate between a similar landscape in Italy, France and Portugal, I’d say go for Alentejo 100 times! Apart from enjoying the hilltop and castle views and the vast spaces unfolding in front of you, you will feel welcomed instantly – and I have to warn you that this comes also with some seriously delicious food.

I have seen the spark with excitement in the eyes of Portuguese when I mention that I have a property in Alentejo. That in itself says a lot!!

What's some advice you could give people before they buy a property in Portugal?

Be open, determined and if it feels right, move fast. There will be difficulties on the way, but don’t give up, use the ratio, yet take a heartful decision.

If you have to crunch a lot of numbers to put your finances together, try to picture and project what each financial simulation enables you to achieve. The sense of purpose and the creation of an alternative reality for such a project are necessary to take it to the successful level that you want it to be.

I know it sounds cheesy, a bit too emotional for a very important decision involving real estate acquisition. This may not appeal to everyone, but it will certainly speak to some of you, and it is perfectly fine 😊

In terms of more practical steps having a trustable agent at your service is THE most important decision at the start of your journey that will define the success of your undertaking when it comes to a conclusion.