The English have a long relationship with Porto and the steep-terraced slopes
of the remote but beautiful Douro valley. More than 200 years ago,
fashionable gentlemen discovered a taste for the sweet red wine of northern
Portugal, but it turned to vinegar on the trip home. So it was fortified
with sugar to last the journey, and port was invented.
Today, British househunters are making a return trip, navigating the
vertiginous roads into the hilly hinterland to rediscover the rural
villages, 18th-century quintas, or farms, and the new boutique developments
springing up in the wilder wine-growing regions. Indeed, the Portuguese Real
Estate Association says 18,000 of us bought property in the country last
year, and a growing number are choosing homes in the Minho and Douro regions
within two hours’ drive of Porto, the country’s second-largest city.
In the Douro, the names of the famous port companies – Sande-man, Graham’s,
Taylor’s, Offley and Cockburn’s – are displayed in letters up to 10ft tall
on the vine-clad hillsides. Traditional whitewashed quintas, whose thick
walls have kept generations of wine-makers cool during the blistering hot
summers, rarely come up for sale. When they do, they are often exorbitantly
priced (decent period properties with some vines start at £1m) or in need of
complete, and equally expensive, renovation. According to Jerry Harris, a
director of Abacus, a Lisbon-based chartered surveyor, a rundown farmhouse
in the Douro costs from £320,000 to £500,000, but, he warns, allow another
£500 a square metre to do it up.
As a result, most buyers are looking to the new. However, building in the
Douro and, to a lesser extent, in the Minho, is a tricky business. Hemmed in
by the rugged landscape and strict local planning laws, developers can build
only small-scale projects, which means more expensive properties aimed at
the sophisticated buyer who knows the difference between tawny and ruby port.
At the Aquapura hotel, a converted 19th-century country house near Peso da
Regua – and one of the first luxury hotels in the region – the owners have
built 21 residential units, each with a private wine cellar, for sale
freehold on a leaseback basis. Under the formula, which is common in France
but an innovation for Portugal, buyers lease back their property to the
hotel, but have eight weeks’ use a year and benefit from rental income for
the rest of the time.
“It’s a completely new concept,” says Miguel Simoes de Almeida, the managing
director of the boutique hotel group who is overseeing the project. “It is
directed at second-home owners who want a luxury lifestyle and an
investment. “It’s closer than South Africa, cheaper than Tuscany and, well,
just different from France.”
The properties, 14 riverside terraces clad in the local purple-grey slate and
seven villas surrounded by vineyards, come fully furnished and are
surprisingly modern: the wood floors are stained a rich pink reminiscent of
port wine, dark colours and suede are used throughout, and each bathroom
features a vast, freestanding porcelain bath.
Prices start at £433,000 for the smallest one-bedder, up to £1m for the
largest two-bed terrace. Rental income is guaranteed at 6% for the first two
years; thereafter, it will depend on how well the properties let out. As
part of the deal, owners can use the hotel and its 20,000 sq ft spa complex,
two restaurants and optional butler service. “Prices are still about 25%
behind those in Porto,” says Simoes de Almeida. “We expect them to catch up
over the next couple of years. There is a lot of opportunity.”
This is Portugal for grown-ups. The rustic farmhouses and ambitiously modern
new developments are many miles from the pastel-coloured villas and golf
courses of the Algarve and the cosmopolitan glitz of Lisbon.
Where Aquapura leads, others follow: the Vidago Palace, on the border of the
Douro and Tras-os-Montes, is launching a similar scheme in the next year. At
Castelo de Paiva, a 40-minute drive southeast of Porto, work has started on
Douro 41, a project that comprises 26 villas and a hotel. Prices start at
£271,000 for a one-bed flat; two-bedders cost from £433,000.
Rui Martel, a sales agent for Douro 41 and freelance property finder, admits
property in the area is pricey: a reflection of the growing demand for
second homes from Portuguese as well as foreign clients. Buyers should be
especially wary of the “crazy prices” being asked by the owners of some
traditional manor houses, in particular, he says. His advice? As always, do
your research.
Head east to Lamego, which produces sparkling wine rather than port, and there
is more building under way. Here, Francisco Lopez, the mayor, is promoting
similar small-scale development. “We don’t want to be an Algarve or a
Madeira,” he says, “but we need houses to sell. We need more high-quality
rooms to encourage visitors and the local economy. We want
second-home-owners and foreign investors to come to the Douro. We want to do
it and do it right.”
There are plans in the pipeline to build seven more hotels in the area – from
14 up to a maximum of 50 rooms. Both the local tourist board and the
planners are pushing for the schemes to include second homes or a
residential investment scheme.
Venture south to the mountainous Beira Alta, an hour’s drive from Porto
airport, and you’ll find the medieval village of Povoa Dao, which is being
restored by the Catarino Group, a Portuguese construction company. The
700-year-old properties have been immaculately renovated: they all now have
water, electricity and heating, and are kitted out with mod cons and
comfortably rustic interiors suitable for holiday lets.
On the banks of the River Dao, the new tourism village will have 52 units, 45
of which are offered as leaseback, with four weeks’ use per year. The
properties all share on-site management services, a swimming pool, tennis
court and club bar. Prices start at £132,000.
“When we first saw the village, we were completely enraptured,” says Vitor
Catarino, president of the building group, about Povoa Dao. “We have paid
close attention to recreating the authenticity of the village, complementing
its natural surroundings and providing buyers with all the modern comforts.”
One British buyer, Liam Donnelly, 53, and his wife, Monica, 51. fell in love
with the area, to the extent that they have acquired two properties. The
couple bought a four-bedroom farmhouse near Ponte de Lima in the Minho, for
about £67,000, about 18 months ago. They have also kept their seaside villa
near Porto.
“Most English people head to the Algarve, but you have to pay English prices,”
says Donnelly, a businessman originally from Liverpool, who is based now in
India but calls Portugal home. “It is beautiful, cheaper and less developed
here.
“I’m sure it will all change eventually, but it certainly won’t happen
overnight. It still has that lost-in-time charm,” he adds. “You see old
ladies dressed in black carrying bundles of sticks on their backs, and you
can still get lunch with wine in the village for less than £8.”
Porto of call
A fully furnished two-bedroom riverside flat at Aquapura, in the upper Douro,
has a private terrace and rooftop splash pool.
For sale for £750,000 on a leaseback basis, through Cushman &
Wakefield; 0870 042 9773, www.aquapuravillas.com
Quinta das Nogueiras, an 18th-century country house near Peso da Regua, has a
chapel, three further properties and 15 acres.
For sale for £2.6m; viewing by arrangement with the owner: vallado.fc@mail.telepac.pt
A three-bed, 246-square-metre villa at Douro 41, near Castelo de Paiva, is due
to be built into the steep riverside terraces by December.
For sale for £795,000, with Abacus, in association with Savills; 00 351 21
317 0577, www.abacusproperty.pt
A two-bed cottage is one of 45 in the restored medieval village of Povoa Dao,
which lies an hour’s drive south of Porto airport. Owners will have
use of a pool and club bar.
For sale for £219,000, with Catarino; 0870 112 5472, www.povoadao.co.uk
Beautiful, cheaper and less developed. Mmm, because there's no work, the young have left for the towns, the elderly are left on their own in rural poverty. It may look pretty, but living without running water or electricity is still a reality for many people.
Emma Crabtree, Coimbra, Portugal