The Commissioner of Financial Services considers that “if investors have investment alternatives with good profitability outside the real estate market” will start to diversify their portfolios.
Maria Luís Albuquerque believes that markets can help lower house prices. In an interview with SIC and Expresso, the Commissioner for Financial Services argues that limiting investment funds in the real estate sector is not a solution to high prices.
“Today we are witnessing something that did not exist in the past, which is a disconnect between the price of houses and the standard of living of the population, which have always been in some way associated”, points out Maria Luís Albuquerque.
The European Commission has already promised to look at the effect of speculation on house prices, but the Commissioner responsible for Financial Services warns that the solution is not to limit the access of funds and investors to real estate, but to create a single capital market in Europe with fewer barriers to investment.
“If we have a more efficient capital market, and investors have investment alternatives with good profitability outside the real estate market, they themselves will also diversify. This helps to alleviate demand pressure.”
Do you need to trust the markets to do this work? “We need to think very carefully about what might be interventions in the market. I think Portugal offers a paradigmatic example. We had a freeze on rents and I would say that this has never helped anyone rent a house in decades (…) Impeding the market would say that it is not a good solution.”
Maria Luís Albuquerque argues that it is necessary to look at the reasons that lead investors to look at houses as a financial product.
“There are reasons why this happened. One way to help the problem begin to be resolved is to try to work on those reasons.”
“There are also other factors leading to the increase in prices, which have to do with the fact that we have a more nomadic population, with purchasing power, than we had in the past. There has also been less supply, less housing construction”, he points out.
The position of Commissioner of Financial Services also involves mobilizing private capital and attracting investments, at a time when Europe is trying to be more competitive in relation to China and the United States.
