Rents Up by 11.5% in Second Quarter 2021

Rental costs for a newly leased home rose by 11.5% in the second quarter of the year. There were 20,568 new rental contracts in Portugal with an average price of €6.03/m2. The increase was higher than in the previous quarter (+5.3%).  The number of new contracts also soared compared to the second quarter of 2020 (+49.3%), when the country was in the depths of the pandemic.

The data, published by the National Institute of Statistics, also showed that the increase in the number of new leases compared to the first quarter, a period also marked by restrictions on mobility as a result of the pandemic, reached +3.0% (-9.3% in the previous quarter).

Rents rose in 20 of the 25 sub-regions in Portugal. The sub-region of Oeste (+12.3%), Aveiro (+11.9%), Madeira (+11.3%) and Metropolitan Porto (+10.2%) reported the highest rises. The regions with the steepest rents were the Metropolitan Lisbon (€8.82/m2), the Algarve (€6.96/m2), Metropolitan Porto (€6.40/m2) and Madeira (€6.32/m2).

The INE’s analysis also highlighted that the number of new rental contracts in the country this year was higher than in the same quarter of 2020 (13,772 new contracts), a close to 50% increase in rental activity. Quarter-on-quarter, the number of new leases grew by 3% (vs -9.3% in the first quarter). In the second quarter of 2021, all sub-regions reported year-on-year increases in the number of new leases.

Approximately one-third of the new contracts (7,171) were in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Together, the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto accounted for 53% of the total number of new contracts in the country. The Algarve accounted for 6.3%. The lowest number of new contracts was in Baixo Alentejo (108).

Rents were above average nationally in the sub-regions of Metropolitan Lisbon (€8.82/m2), the Algarve (€6.96/m2), Metropolitan Porto (€6.40/m2) and Madeira (€6.32/m2 ). The lowest rents were in Terras de Trás-os-Montes (€2.79/m2) and in Alto Alentejo (€2.80/m2).