Rodolfo Reis, responsible, believes that the country remains on the radar of foreign investors despite changes to the ‘golden’ visa regime and highlights the offering of affordable housing and sustainability as the main issues to be discussed in Portugal. The crisis caused by Covid-19 did not affect the Belgian promoter Krest. In an interview with Jornal Económico (JE), CEO Claude Kandiyoti talks about a positive response from Portuguese investors and already has more projects to develop in Portugal.

In reality, it didn’t affect us at all. The effects of the pandemic are actually a boom in the market right now, but it’s not clear whether it’s a real estate ‘bubble’ or not. In this Miraflores project, for example, during the pandemic, people called us from morning to evening asking about the apartments, and we’ve never sold as much as we did during that time until now, and 70% of our sales were to Portuguese clients. Since the reopening, everything has been calm, that was the effect of the pandemic. Do you have an explanation for this? Since people are at home, they haven’t stopped working and need to breathe and think, because they couldn’t do anything else during the lockdown. So they started looking for new spaces to live and work. With the economic crisis affecting the country and unemployment, were you surprised by this investment capacity of the Portuguese? When the pandemic started, several questions arose, and just like in any crisis, it’s impossible to predict the future, we have to live day by day. I wasn’t surprised, but positively affected by the way many Portuguese understood the new reality we live in and that this was the right time to invest. Was it a sign of confidence from the Portuguese market, despite the pandemic? At the moment, in the Miraflores project, we’ve already sold 105 apartments and have 120 to sell. In the Algarve, we have two projects, one with 25 apartments, where 16 are already sold, and another, the Horizon, located in Forte Novo, which includes 129 apartments, where despite demand, we’re not selling yet because we’re waiting for licensing, which I hope will be in June so we can start construction in September. I see the market ‘boiling’ because there is a great lack of supply in the Portuguese market from the low to the medium and high levels. Is Portugal still on the radar of foreign investors? They will return, the question is that with changes to the golden visa regime in Lisbon and Porto, there will be a change because people don’t come to Portugal because of the golden visa, but rather because of the quality of life. What other projects are in the pipeline? We have some projects that we can’t disclose yet, but they will be located in Greater Lisbon and one of them in Porto. We already have signed agreements, but there are still some administrative processes to overcome. These are important projects where we expect to invest between 200 to 250 million euros over the next four years. Do travel restrictions and fear of the pandemic justify this growth of Portuguese investors? I truly believe that people need a change of scenery and also because they don’t know where they can invest their money. They can’t enter the stock market because it’s too high, and leaving the money in the bank can generate negative interest. Are you concerned about the changes to the ‘golden’ visa regime? It doesn’t affect us because we don’t work with golden visas, but it will affect the high-end segment because it represents a large part of that market. There are two problems we want to address now: the housing issue, creating more affordable housing. The question is: do we want to enter the Government or municipal program or not? I’m not sure because of the restrictions on entering one of these programs. I have some doubts about the real capacity of local authorities to work with public-private projects, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be part of that solution. The second problem is integrating ESG criteria [Environmental, Social and Governance], that is, reducing emissions, being aware of the energy and climate footprint that our construction will bring. Let’s forget about the licensing issue. Let’s say I want to make a more sustainable project. They will immediately tell us that it will be more expensive and local authorities don’t ask for more sustainable projects. This is more of a concept than a regulation, and I believe we have to change, not the governments or regulations, that’s not our role, but rather change civic responsibility to create projects that address the problems the world faces. And this requires two things: first, we have to make sure that local authorities understand what we’re trying to do. The second is related to emissions and ‘green homes,’ meaning people have to change their way of living, either in smaller apartments but with larger terraces or using the car less, using less gas, and using more electricity. It’s a process that will take time. Were these changes brought about by telecommuting? I don’t think so. It’s something that has been a challenge for a long time. The Miraflores project is sustainable, but not as much as I would like, because there were no alternatives when I started developing it, but now we want to engage in good ESG practices and, at the same time, offer the best quality and price to our clients.