Homeowners in a Foreign Country!

It’s official, we have closed on a condo in Figueira da Foz, so we now own property in Portugal. I didn’t want to jinx it before the official closing, and wow, has it been a LONG process! Since this is my journal blog, mainly for myself, I’m going to include some posts on our adventures living in another country.

So far–bureaucracy and red tape are thriving world-wide! We found this condo in December, 2023 and made the offer in January. We closed April 22nd. That’s the longest time we’ve ever had to secure financing and for the bank to close. It’s also been done remotely. We found a great realtor who has made the process much easier. At least…we hope so. We’ll find out for sure in May when we actually see the place we bought. …fingers crossed…

Jump to…May 9th. We’re here! Our realtor Vitor and his partner Gina (pronounced Jenna) met us to show us around. The condo is what we expected – enough room for us and nicely updated. I’m surprised with the amount of storage it has, many cabinets. The furniture the seller left us is very uncomfortable, so we’ll switch things out over time. We bought a “pocket spring” bed to put on top the mattresses after the first night’s sleep. Sleep is a generous word, more like turning when your side went numb from sleeping on a mattress made of wood.

The view is amazing! The top selling point for us is the proximity to the beach, but I could not have imagined how beautiful it is. Not from photos or a video tour. It reminds me of San Diego some – it is a dry climate (don’t know whether it stays that way) with loud, large rolling waves, and a warming, intense sun. It does rain much more often here though. I was reminded of Sunset Cliffs when I stepped out onto our balcony. It was my favorite place in SD. Now I can see the sunset every night and hear the waves all day! Heaven.

We have a second balcony that is longer and faces the east. It will be nice to sit in the shade when it’s hot. Another selling point was that we are surrounded by areas that will not be built upon. We have a nice square and monument that means we won’t have very close neighbors. They are building like crazy here as Portugal has its own housing shortage. There are several buildings going up down the street from us.

There were places for sale in the tiered building in the photo above. Our realtor knows the area well, and the contractors, so he was able to tell us that the home association has not maintained the building well. It’s a beautiful design, and I liked the architecture; it’s a shame to hear that it’s not been kept up.