New Nova SBE campus is contributing to the rise in house prices in Carcavelos

  • ECO News
  • 12 November 2018

A new Nova SBE campus was built in Carcavelos, and it is influencing highly the prices of houses in the area. The University is also finding it hard to provide affordable housing to students.

Carcavelos now has a new University campus, which has come to change the area in many ways. It is the first university in this borough, located in the bay area of Lisbon, well known for its beaches and surfing spots. The arrival of this new Nova SBE campus has attracted thousands of students from all over the world, and it has boosted the real estate market in the area.

However, for those who want to live closer to one of the best business schools in the world, the chances of getting a house might have narrowed down a bit as prices became less affordable.

In two years, house prices increased by 45%, with student residences charging a monthly fee of around €500 to each student. Cascais City council will increase the number of residences available in the area, but it has reported to ECO that the prices are going to be in line with the ones already practised at the moment.

The housing prices in the Union of Boroughs of Carcavelos and Parede, where the new campus is located, have increased significantly. According to the National Statistics Office (INE), since the beginning of 2016 up until the first trimester of the present year, the house prices increased by 45.5%, which is translated into an average of €2,281 per square meter. When compared with all the other boroughs in Cascais, this was the one in which prices increased the most.

The campus works started in September 2016 and since then the housing market in Carcavelos started changing. Remax noticed an increase in demand, for those seeking to rent and also those looking to buy houses. “Those who want to buy are doing so mostly because their kids are coming to study at the university, and some also are motivated by the increase in demand, and want to buy apartments and rent them accompanying that trend”, Remax told ECO.

Since the beginning of the year, Remax noted that the price per square meter those who were buying faced had increased from €2,500 to €3,000 while in terms of renting prices there was an increase from €8 to €14 per square meter. “The area is clearly changing, becoming more appealing to young people, and families. Some investors are also interested because of the increases in the price per square meter increase in the renting segment”, the same real estate company explained.

Another real estate agent, from It real estate agency, told ECO that “there aren’t enough houses to respond to the increasing demand, and construction is slow, also not able to respond to the pressure that exists in the area”, something he believes will “not be easily solved”.

A new campus, a new location

Around 3,000 students are currently enrolled in Nova SBE Carcavelos, and they can choose between two places: Lisbon’s centre and the area surrounding the university. However, both areas are quite costly, with Lisbon having registered, since the beginning of 2016 up until the first trimester of 2018, an increase of 46.8%, according to INE. Price per square meter in Lisbon is currently at €2,753.

House renting prices for students are increasing rapidly, and at Uniplaces, rooms will cost on average €367 per month. If you look quickly through the platform, you can easily find many rooms which cost around €1,000 or more per month.

According to Uniplaces’ manager for the Portuguese and Italian market, Inês Amaral, the large majority of the students prefer to stay in the city centre, in areas with quick access to the Metro’s green line, so that they can quickly get to the train station and then to the university.

Also, a room in Carcavelos can actually be more expensive than one in Lisbon. In the platform, the average price is €459 per month, €92 above the average in the city centre.