How Many More Measures Does It Take to Do the Obvious?

How Many More Measures Does It Take to Do the Obvious?
Housing continues to be one of the most debated topics in Portugal. New measures, new announcements, new promises and new discussions emerge. However, for those who have been following the real estate, construction and investment sector for several years, the feeling is often the same: we continue to discuss peripheral solutions to a problem whose origin is already perfectly identified.
The recent reduction in construction VAT to 6% is a positive measure and deserves recognition. It shows that there is finally a clearer understanding of some of the costs that penalise housing production. Any measure that increases the economic viability of projects should be welcomed. But it is also important to be honest about the scale of the problem.
The biggest obstacle to construction in Portugal is not just cost. It's time.
We can reduce taxes, create lines of financing, launch public programs or announce new incentives. But as long as a project continues to take years between its conception and the laying of the first stone, we will always be attacking the symptoms and not the origin of the disease.
Those who invest in construction know that each month of delay has a cost. The land accumulates financial burdens. Capital is immobilized. Interest accumulates. Technical teams stay engaged longer. The processes are reviewed successively by different entities. And at the end of this whole journey, someone pays the bill. That someone is usually the buyer or the lessee.
For too long, the idea has been created that high prices are the result of the greed of developers or the pressure of demand. The reality is more complex. A large part of the cost of a house is born even before construction begins. It is born in bureaucracy, uncertainty and the slowness of the system.
But there is another issue that continues to be little discussed and that I consider equally important: the absence of a true national strategy for renting.
Portugal has built over decades a culture deeply linked to property. Owning a home has become synonymous with security, stability and family wealth. This strategy worked for many years and helped millions of families build wealth. But the world has changed.
Today, many of Europe's most balanced economies are based on a healthy mix of ownership and renting. In Portugal, we remain too dependent on the purchase of housing, when a significant part of the population could benefit from a professionalized, stable and scalable rental market.
If I were a real estate developer, I would probably also try to build where I can get the greatest financial return. It is a perfectly rational business decision. The question is to understand how to create incentives that align private interests with the needs of society.
Why not create tax programs that allow investors to build buildings intended exclusively for rental periods of 20 or 30 years? Why not offer fiscal and regulatory predictability that allows investors to accept lower yields in exchange for long-term stability?
The curious thing is that this model already exists in other sectors.
In logistics, developers build parks to lease for decades to distribution operators. In retail, many investors own the real estate while other companies explore the business. The owner is focused on the real estate asset. The operator is focused on his activity. Both win.
Why not apply a similar logic to housing?
At the same time, the technology already offers solutions that could significantly accelerate housing production. Modular construction, prefabrication, industrialization of processes and automation allow you to build faster, with greater predictability and often at a lower cost. The problem is not technological. It is structural. We still have a system that is poorly prepared to integrate these solutions at the necessary scale.
Basically, housing is no longer just a real estate issue. It has become an economic, social and even demographic issue. When young people are unable to buy or rent a house, they delay life projects. When workers are unable to live close to the places where they work, productivity decreases. When households devote an excessive part of their income to housing, consumption, savings and investment capacity are reduced.
That is why this debate must be more ambitious.
Building more is important. Nobody disputes this. But after years of repeating the same phrase, perhaps it's time to admit that the problem was never just quantity. The real challenge is to create a system that allows us to build better, faster and in an economically sustainable way.
The path has been identified for a long time. Faster licensing. Coordination between entities. Greater regulatory predictability. A robust rental market. Long-term incentives for institutional investors. More industrialized and efficient construction.
The question is no longer what remains to be asked.
The question is how many more measures will be needed until we have the courage to do the obvious.