BusinessWeek: “Southern Europe’s cash-strapped governments are wooing wealthy home buyers from overseas by offering so-called golden visas to purchasers of high-end properties. Portugal, Greece, and Cyprus are offering temporary-residency permits to foreign investors, and Spain is about to kick off its program. The main targets are wealthy Chinese, who have been snapping up properties from Vancouver to London as Beijing tightens controls on real estate speculation on the mainland. Luis Hortelão, a broker with Re/Max in Lisbon, says his Chinese clients “know exactly what they want: a modern property to rent out during their absence and a visa to travel in Europe.”
In Portugal buyers must pay a minimum of €500,000 ($670,000) for a property to be eligible for a five-year residency permit. A total of 102 visas has been granted since the program began last year, according to the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service, mostly to Chinese buyers. Edmund Zhao, a real estate developer from Hangzhou in eastern China, expects to receive his permit any day now after paying €700,000 for an apartment in the resort town of Cascais. Zhao must spend at least seven days in Portugal during the first year and 14 days every two years thereafter. His visa will also let him travel freely through the Schengen Area, made up of 26 European countries that have abolished immigration controls at their borders. “I want to move there with my wife and parents as soon as possible,” says Zhao, 38, who wants to send his future children to European schools.
Searches for Portuguese properties on Juwai.com, a Chinese real estate website aimed at international home buyers, rose more than threefold from January through April, says Andrew Taylor, its co-chief executive officer. Home prices in Portugal are less expensive than in some parts of China; €300,000 buys a 2,000-square-foot villa facing the sea, according to Wang Ning, a manager in the international property department at SouFun Holdings (SFUN), owner of China’s biggest real estate website. That amount buys a 730-square-foot apartment in central Shanghai.”
via European Nations Woo Chinese Home Buyers With Visas – Businessweek.
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