Day 10 Assignment

If Portugal is on your list of finalists (or perhaps you know for sure Portugal is the place for you), then spend some time today looking through property websites like idealista.com, imovirtual.com, and era.pt to see what kinds of listings are available in your regions of interest in your price range.

Look at both rental and purchase options, just to begin to wrap your head around the local market. The point of this exercise isn’t to fall in love with an internet ad and make any rash decisions… it’s just a way for you to take a virtual real estate tour before you invest in a real scouting trip.

Take note of any words or phrases that keep popping up and make a little vocabulary list of terms you know will be useful in your hunt. Start taking casual notes about things you like and don’t like in certain types of property. Or, if you’re a “spreadsheeter,” break out Excel and organize your thoughts into tabs and cells. However you like to compile data, start doing it now.

You may, for example, be looking for a home without stairs… will single-story homes be difficult to find where you’re headed? Just a few days on the web will answer that question for you.

Once you are ready to put boots on the ground, the listings available will be completely turned over, of course, but you’ll come in ahead of the game, armed with some anecdotal market knowledge before you even hit the ground.