A significant number of these requests are from foreigners who wish to benefit from the Government's measure, aimed at young people between 18 and 35 years old, which allows them to request 100% of bank financing for the purchase, 'Público' revealed.

The measure does not include any restrictions on the nationality of young applicants, as they only need to have tax residence in Portugal, as well as meet the other requirements of the diploma. According to the daily newspaper, young Brazilians and those from PALOP countries have made the largest number of requests to join the measure, followed by Americans.

Although there is no exact data, in the case of Novo Banco, around 10% of the applications already approved under this measure are from foreign citizens, of which 90% are young Brazilians, followed by Americans. BPI and Bankinter have similar applications but on a smaller scale. “The number is not very significant”, indicated BPI, highlighting that they are “from various nationalities, with the majority being Brazilians”. Bankinter referred to a “residual weight", which suggests that there was no relevant nationality that deserves to be highlighted”.

In the case of real estate agencies, particularly Era, “three out of every four stores have already received requests from young foreigners interested in using the current benefits for buying a house, namely the public guarantee”, pointed out Rui Torgal, president of Era Portugal.

“Since the beginning of the year, we have had 10 requests per month, with some stores registering more than 50 requests per month for information or feasibility”, he indicated, highlighting that “the majority are made by Brazilians (62.5%)”, with there also being many requests from citizens of PALOP (19.2%) – mainly Angola and Cape Verde – and, to a lesser extent, young French, Italian, Venezuelan and Ukrainian people”.