# Question about Apartment Hunting in Lisbon



## portugalexpat (Mar 24, 2018)

Hi all,

I'm planning to visit Lisbon sometime this spring/summer (either May or September due to scheduling) in order to look for an apartment to rent before applying for my residence visa (which I need to do back home in the States). I'm looking for a furnished apartment (most likely T2) with a budget of roughly €1400/month, and will probably hire a real estate agent to help find a place. I was wondering if anyone could suggest a ballpark amount of time that I should budget for visiting, in order to allow enough time to find a decent apartment? Is 2 weeks enough? 3 weeks? A month or longer?

Thanks in advance for your input.


----------



## MrBife (Jul 26, 2009)

Real Estate agents don't offer much help with finding rentals - they make 5% from a sale but nothing by comparison from finding you a rental. 

The best apartments in terms of value and location currently sell within a few days of coming on to the market so for real estate agents the place is busy. 

Rentals are more readily found using the local papers, looking out for signs in windows and for small adverts on scraps of paper in corner shops. (Plus word of mouth in corner shops - these people know a lot about what is going on in the immediate area). 

Impossible to know how 'picky' you are in terms of requirements, you could be lucky and quickly find something that will fulfill visa requirements but it could take a month of looking round before you decided on an area you want to live in let alone finding the perfect rental.


----------



## Strontium (Sep 16, 2015)

^^^^ Like wot he/she says ^^^

I'd suggest a much longer time (years?) spending a month or so in different areas if you have no idea what area you want to live in. I assume, as you have not suggested otherwise, you have not spent much time in Portugal. 25% of the population live in Lisbon and it varies in a spectrum from derelict slums (with people living in them) to gated communities with guards. May is not the same as September. Usually people would spend time here looking for the district/area they want to live in with respect to available accommodation, transport, beaches, shops, bars, schools, parks, the river, the sea, race track, bull rig, football grounds, weather, parking, crime etc etc. No estate agent can nor will do that for you and they are unlikely to even search locally, other then places on their books, unless they have physically met you. why would they waste their time if they do not get paid for it. You will need to put your own time and effort into looking and contacting people, looking in papers, talking to locals in person. A place which looks nice and pleasant in the spring and autumn may be sweltering in the summer and damp (+black mould) in the wet season, And as for the nightly ritual of barking dogs these are not usually on any estate agents rental details.


----------



## portugalexpat (Mar 24, 2018)

Thanks for the input. I've already done some research and narrowed down my list of potential neighborhoods to Campo de Orique, Belem, Santos, or Principe Real. Unfortunately, I don't have an indefinite amount of time to spend looking around for neighborhoods or apartments, as I still have to return home to apply for my visa (having a rental contract is a prerequisite for the visa). Given these neighborhoods and a budget of roughly €1400/month, do you think that a visit of one month would be enough to find a decent place?


----------



## Strontium (Sep 16, 2015)

With 1400 a month I would have no problem finding places in the Belem area by the river where I was looking earlier this year. Two weeks should be enough to get a rented address for residential admin reasons if that is the priority but you will not have a lot to choose from in that short time so some compromise will probably be needed.


----------

