The Government’s New Housing Plan: What’s going to change?

The government’s new housing programme – “Construir Portugal: Nova Estratégia para a Habitação” (Building Portugal: New Strategy for Housing) – with 30 measures to respond to the housing crisis, was presented last Friday, May 10. This plan was unveiled in direct response to the growing housing supply crisis, promising rapid execution, with measures to be implemented within ten days to four months.

The current government proposes 30 new strategic measures divided into six main categories: encouraging the supply of property, promoting public housing, restoring confidence in the rental system, simplifying current legislation, fostering youth housing, and ensuring housing affordability.

Find out about the main changes in each of the categories:

Incentives to Offer Property
One of the action fronts includes making public property available for affordable housing through Public-Private Partnerships and simplifying the rules for using rural land for sustainable housing. In addition, the plan envisages the creation of new urban centres to decompress areas of high urban pressure.

Promoting Public Housing
Of particular note is the release of 25,000 homes under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), which aims to speed up housing development. The Housing and Urban Rehabilitation Institute (IHRU) will strengthen its promotion capacity to speed up the implementation of the Affordable Rent Programme.

Restoring Confidence in Leasing
The programme proposes repealing previous measures that imposed excessive restrictions, such as forced rent, as well as correcting distortions in the Urban Lease Regime that had undermined the flexibility and confidence of the market.

Legislative simplification
Measures are planned to reduce bureaucracy and simplify processes, such as the revision of the Simplex Urbanístico and the implementation of the BIM methodology to bring licensing platforms closer to economic agents.

Promoting Youth Housing
Measures such as public guarantees for financing first homes and tax exemptions for young people up to 35 reinforce the commitment to the new generation.

Accessibility in Housing
Finally, the programme aims to streamline rent subsidy programmes and create transitional regulations between supported and affordable rents.

This link contains the government document systematising the 30 measures presented.

MATLAW will continue to monitor the implementation of these measures closely, and we are happy to answer any questions about how they might impact your projects and investments in the sector.