According to the news published by Iberian Property, «Portugal has the lowest affordable housing stock of Europe, but municipalities are developing ambitious local programs to increase the supply of housing units, as they presented at MIPIM in Cannes.

Before an audience of international investors and real estate players during MIPIM, the largest gathering of real estate investors and developers, the public and private entities shared the stage, to address the affordability solutions for the Portuguese market.

Claude Kandiyoti, CEO of KREST, a family-owned developer present on the Portuguese market for the past 10 years, provided his insights on other European rental markets with a long track record. In the case of Brussels, for example the regional government had NGOs operating social housing projects.

For Claude Kandiyoti the key to make these partnerships work is to have a transparent concept, meaning that roles should be defined with the separation of developer and tenant. Besides this, “affordability doesn’t mean undervaluing the business model component, in fact it is extremely important to have an entry and exit strategy”.

The CEO informed that currently Portugal has the lowest affordable housing stock of Europe, and he is sure that at some point if municipalities want to meet their targets, they will have to buy projects already built.»

Picture from Iberian Property
(Public and Private entities gathered at MIPIM to discuss affordable housing)