30% of the houses rented in February through idealista.pt were on the Portuguese market for less than a week.
According to Idealista: 22% of the houses on the martket took between two weeks and a month to be leased; 21% between one month and three months; 10% between three months and a year and 17% over a year.
Analyzing the “express leases” - houses that were rented in less than a week - by district capitals, it is in Leiria (49%) that we find a higher percentage. Aveiro (46%), Porto (42%), Santarém (41%), Funchal (39%), Coimbra (33%), Braga (32%) and Setúbal (31%) follow. Faro follows the national average, where 30% of the houses were rented during the same period.
In Lisbon, 22% of the houses were rented in less than one week. There are three main reasons why in Lisbon the percentage of houses rented in less than one week is inferior to other cities . One of the reasons is because prices are higher in Lisbon, and locals know how to search for better deals on platforms like Facebook, not using Portals like Idealista, Imovirtual or OLX. Second, is because landlords know they don’t need to post their listings in portals like Idealista to attract clients. Landlords know that Facebook Marketplace and groups can be more efficient, less expensive and faster to get clients, and affordable apartments might not stay on the market for more than one day. The third reason is the way some realtors act. Generally, realtors don’t delete their listings from real estate portals right after the deal is done. Some don’t do it because it isn’t an emergency to delete the listings, but some don’t do it so they can receive more calls and attract potential clients.
The rental market is very competitive and even with the help of a realtor sometimes it is difficult to find the desired home in a short time, especially if you are looking for a furnished home or an apartment with specific features (like cheap apartments with more than one bathroom in the historical center of Lisbon).
The help of a local realtor is essential for a client to know where to rent and under the right conditions, specially if the client is an expat with poor knowledge of the city, however, due to the entry of several local rental companies into the long-term rental market after the beginning of the pandemic and the fact that many realtors do not share leasing deals, make the agent's job more difficult, unless the agent works for an agency that specializes in leasing. That’s one of the reasons why the majority of realtors don’t waist time working with rentals unless they are the ones with the listings, they get a smaller commission having more work than working with sales. The other reason is that most of the times they know that the client as spoken with another realtor, and if this is the case, this realtor is not going to work hard searching for a house for you.