Buying · Mortgages
27 August 2026 · Rafaella Galardo
Banks have never valued Portuguese homes so highly. In July 2026, the median bank valuation reached €2,240 per square metre — the highest figure ever recorded. At first glance it looks like just another statistic. But it is a number that can decide whether your deal goes ahead or not. Let us take it step by step, slowly.
A bank valuation is what the bank thinks the home is worth. It is carried out by an independent surveyor, hired by the bank, who visits the property, measures it, photographs it and compares it with similar sales in the area.
And why does the bank do this? Because the home is the security for the loan. If one day you stop paying, the bank keeps the home. So the bank wants to be sure that the home is worth at least what it lent.
The rule of thumb is simple: the bank lends on the lower of the purchase price and the valuation. Keep that sentence in mind — it is the key to everything that follows.
The data comes from INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatística, the national statistics office) and refers to July 2026:
Here is the part that really matters. Imagine you have agreed to buy a home for €500,000. The bank has approved financing of 80% (the so-called LTV — the percentage of the value of the home that the bank lends).
Good scenario: the bank values the home at €500,000. It lends €400,000. You put in €100,000 as a down payment, plus the taxes and the costs of the deed.
Bad scenario: the bank values the home at €460,000. Because it lends on the lower figure, the 80% applies to the €460,000 — that is, it lends €368,000, and not €400,000.
The result: the seller still wants €500,000. The bank only puts in €368,000. The difference — €132,000 — has to come out of your own pocket, instead of the €100,000 you had planned for. That is €32,000 more, which nobody had budgeted for.
This is why so many deals collapse between the promissory contract and the deed. It is not a lack of willingness: it is the valuation that does not match the price.
If valuations are at record highs, that is good for you — but only up to a point. The valuation follows the real market, not the price we would like to ask.
If you list your home far above what the market supports, one of two things will happen: either no buyer appears, or a buyer appears who then cannot get enough credit. In both cases you lose time — and time sitting on a listing drives the final price down.
The advice is always the same: a well-positioned price from day one. A home that is well priced and well presented sells faster and, almost always, for more money than a home that has spent months cutting its price. If you are thinking of selling, see how we work on Sell.
Three practical things, in order:
And do not forget everything that comes on top of the price: IMT (property transfer tax), Stamp Duty, the deed and registrations. We explained each one, with examples, in the article what it really costs to buy a home in Portugal. For the mortgage side, see also our Financing page.
Before any offer, we sit down with you and do the real sums: how much the bank is likely to value the property at, how much it will lend, how much you need to have of your own and how much you will pay in taxes. If you are selling, we position the price using real valuation data from the area — not guesswork.
With 15 years of legal practice before real estate, I look at contracts with a different kind of care. The right clause in the CPCV is often the difference between losing your deposit and walking away from the deal at no cost.
See also the properties available or the support we give to buyers.
Source: idealista/news (26 August 2026), with INE data for July 2026.
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