Comporta - Yea or Nay?
Last week lora&melo had the pleasure of hosting a group of foreign investors for their first scouting trip to Portugal.
Their focus was on opportunities with strong financial returns, and their locations of interest were Lisbon city center and Comporta. Click here for pictures of some of the projects we visited.
After Lisbon and Cascais (a wealthy residential suburb of Lisbon), Comporta is the location we get asked about the most - and here’s why:
What is Comporta and where is it?
Comporta is a small Portuguese beach village located an hour and a half by car south of Lisbon, in the northwest coast of the Alentejo region.
However, the name “Comporta” has now evolved to refer to the wider Comporta area that includes other villages such as Carvalhal and Melides.
The area is known for its pristine beaches and peaceful landscapes of pine trees and rice fields, and for its distinctive yet hard-to-describe Comporta vibe.
It has also become a prized destination for the super-rich, so much so that some people are now calling it “the Hamptons of Europe”.
Well-known Comporta hang-outs include the Quinta da Comporta resort and the Sublime beach club and hotel.
The transformation of the area into an exclusive community for the jet-set started in the 1990s under the impetus of the Espírito Santo banking family, which owned most of the land. Since then, celebrities such as French designers Christian Louboutin and Philippe Stark, or members of the Monaco royal family, have purchased homes there.
2. Oh yes, isn’t that where George Clooney bought a house?
Well, no, but yes. George Clooney himself has NOT bought a house in Comporta. That’s, unfortunately, fake news.
The truth is somewhat less glamorous: Clooney’s former partner in his Casamigos tequila business, Mike Meldman, owns Discovery Land, the real estate development company behind the massive CostaTerra Golf & Ocean Club project near Melides.
The confusion and the association with Clooney’s name (which Discovery was not quick to dispel) has brought a lot of attention to the area, which may explain why you’ve heard about Comporta before.
3. Is purchasing real estate in Comporta a good investment?
Comporta real estate prices have sky-rocketted in recent years. So that’s not a place where good deals can be made anymore.
A few benchmarks:
At the very top-end, the few remaining villas at CostaTerra (most have already been sold) now cost between 6 and 21 million euros.
Other on-going high-end projects still have available villas for prices between 1 and 2.5 million euros.
Some projects do have empty lots for sale for the buyer to build their own home, but taking into account construction costs, there are no savings to be made and much headache to be gained by going that route.
Periodically, individual homes in the traditional Comporta style also come on the market for prices around 700-800,000 euros.
Hotel rooms or Airbnbs rent for a minimum of 700 euros/night during the high season.
However, the fact that all available land has already been reserved for a small number of developers and that it is impossible to build more in the area, means that the inventory will always remain extremely limited.
Real estate investments in the area, whether they are considered residential (individual traditional homes) or commercial (managed residential resorts) also qualify for the Golden Visa, which is not a negligible advantage.
If you believe that the place will conserve its allure for the years to come, then it means that prices will continue to go up, as a direct consequence of the law of supply and demand.
Admittedly, this is not a strong enough argument if you are seeking to prioritize returns. But if you enjoy the Comporta lifestyle and plan to personally use the property for a few weeks or months every year, then being part of the exclusive Comporta members’ club may be worth the entry price.