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Jornal Escolar AE Muralhas do Minho | 2023-2024

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Houses in Portugal

Carolina Pereira, 7.º F | 31-05-2024

Nowadays, houses in Portugal are very expensive, and depending on the place, even the smallest house can cost a lot of money. Everybody knows that a house in a big city usually costs more than one in the countryside, but even in cities prices are huge. If this situation doesn’t change, lots of Portuguese people won’t have a house to live in.

There are some things that the Portuguese government can do to make this problem disappear, like houses with lower prices or better salaries. Some homes are so expensive to maintain that some people don’t have much money after paying their rents, so they can’t buy as many things as they need like food, especially if they are one-parent families. With better salaries or lower prices, they would have enough money for other expenses.

Another thing that should be improved is the monitoring of how many people live in each house. Unfortunately, in Portugal it is becoming increasingly common for many immigrants to live in the same house. It is quite obvious that more than ten people living in a house for four or even six people is a terrible idea and it isn’t healthy at all. This problem automatically generates another problem: some owners raise the rents and people cannot afford them. These owners must be sanctioned, something that is not happening.

Lots of people, Portuguese or not, prefer living in cities. The problem is that there are so many people living in the cities that these are becoming overcrowded. But if the countryside was equipped with better conditions and facilities, like having more hospitals and supermarkets, people would prefer to live here. Cities would have fewer inhabitants and villages would have more people to work in farming or animal raising.

If we solved all these problems, people would have a house they can feel happy and comfortable, giving them conditions to have a better life with their families.