Silversea

Hi dipstick, I don't know of agents that deal specifically with long term rentals. You may want to google "long term property rental in portugal" (quite a few results) or "agencia imobiliaria portugal" (estate agents portugal). Either way it will take a little effort to find the right property. Good luck!

I know that the prices in Bulgaria are very cheap (not sure if they always have been), for what look like very nice properties. Of course, you would also have to learn the Cyrillic alphabet as well as the language itself :-) Wherever you consider going - it is not easy being an ex-pat especially without other ex-pats around. As time goes by you may well change your mind about the importance of the sun and decide you'd like to return, so do not buy anything which might be difficult to sell later, IMO.

dipstick, I had a similar conversation with a friend last week about buying property in Portugal. She was looking at some hillside ruins (described on a website as picturesque stone houses), which basically the Portuguese wouldn't touch with a bargepole... My advice: yes the thought of the countryside is nice but small villages can be isolated, boring and sometimes poor. On the other hand, stay well clear of the Algarve if you'd like to avoid large numbers of British ex-pats. A decent-sized town further north, away from the biggest cities, is probably a good compromise IMO. Lisbon and Porto are interesting but big places, although the outskirts might be ok. You then have a number of smaller places - Coimbra in the center has a big university, very good hospitals etc. but is quite small and has a medieval centre. There's Evora, Leiria, Figueira da Foz on the coast, etc. The further up north you go the cooler it gets. Give us a shout if you'd like to rent for a few months around the centre of the country (oh yes what did I just say about renting? :-) You can use http://www.livemocha.com to learn basic Portuguese for free (including pronounciation). Just make sure you choose Portuguese from Portugal, not Brazil.

Hello there, I'm a long time lurker of this forum but now decided to register to reply to this thread. I am Portuguese and live in the UK as well (PhD in the UK again followed by [failed] marriage to English subject)! I have 2 flats in Portugal and have resisted renting them as the prospect of basically losing them to tenants is very unappealing. They also become virtually unsaleable if rented out - unless they're sold to the tenants themselves, usually for a fraction of the value. The problem being that I am paying a lot of money in services for empty flats. Hmmm.... dipstick - couldn't agree more with your observations about the UK. Portugal isn't perfect though, I would certainly recommend renting out first as well as setting out priorities. What do you expect from life in Portugal? What will you live of? Are you planning to set up a business? etc. fourminutewarning, is this new law being drawn to appease the Troika's dismay at the state of the rental market in Portugal?