It is just so iconic, that soaring, rust-red suspension bridge. Arching out over the water, fading into the near distance on a cloudy day, synonymous with one of the most creative, entrepreneurial cities in the world. It is a landmark sight most people would know anywhere.
Or would they? Because, despite a resemblance verging on the identical, this is not the Golden Gate Bridge. It is not in San Francisco. It is not even in North America. Welcome to Lisbon. Historic, quaint and ramshackle, this city is everything its stateside counterpart is not. But counterparts they are – and not just because of a strikingly similar taste in overpass design. Rock-bottom rents, residential tax breaks and the rise of coffee-fuelled start-up districts has earned the Portuguese capital the moniker “the California of Europe”.
And now the big guns are moving in. Rohan Silva’s Second Home will open its first overseas outpost in the city next month and Web Summit, one of the world’s biggest and best-known technology conferences, held in Dublin since its launch in 2010, will move to Lisbon in November.
After years in the financial doldrums following the global recession, cheap rents across the board and the city’s new-found “next big thing” status have fuelled record levels of investment into commercial real estate over the past 18 months.
An 130% increase in volume from 2014 to 2015 pushed the total to €2bn (£1.7bn) last year – 95% of which was overseas money. With similar numbers expected this year and a host of tax breaks for overseas buyers on residential property, the great Lisbon love-in shows no signs of a slowdown. “Think Barcelona 25 years ago,” says David Rosen, founder of specialist agent Pilcher Hershman. “That’s where Lisbon is now. With the potential to become just as big.”
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