France has Provence…
Italy has Tuscany…
Portugal has the Alentejo…
The Alentejo is Portugal’s hidden heartland where you’ll find village homes for $100,000, delicious food, and incredible wine. Every bit as evocative and romantic a destination as Provence and Tuscany.
Happy New Year!
And what a year we have coming!
Before I tell you about Portugal’s hidden heartland let me whet your appetite for what’s coming in Your Overseas Dream Home in 2025…
- Country buyer’s guides. In-depth reports on the nuts and bolts of buying real estate in Mexico….Spain…France…Panama…Costa Rica…and other places on our global beat. We’ll include details on how to buy, plus visas, residency options, healthcare…a full and rounded country guide for each destination to help you snap up your dream property.
- I’m going to scout Japan! My tickets are booked and I can’t wait to get boots on the ground in a part of the world where I expect to find outstanding dream homes at incredibly low prices.
- Back to Sicily for bargain hunting. My scout Ciaran Madden plans to return and this time road-trip down the southern coast to Agrigento and the beaches there. (Last time he found utter bargains, village homes from $30,000…
- Little Uruguay is a place I’ve been bullish on for two decades. And I think that right now we have the best Uruguay opportunity of my lifetime. Stay tuned….
- Europe’s newest Riviera runs down the coast of Croatia into Montenegro. As development continues my scouts are ahead of the Path of Progress. Expect news of real estate opportunities nestled amid towering mountains along some of the world’s most dramatic coast.
- In Panama the city offers serious investment opportunities and an incredible lifestyle and elsewhere in the country my scouts will be exploring the highlands for temperate weather retreats at bargain prices.
- Costa Rica is of major interest in 2025 and you can expect a deep investigation of the best real estate opportunities in the country.
That’s just a taste…on the shortlist for scouting we have Greece, Morocco, Thailand, Ireland, England, Colombia, Argentina and back to “the Hawaii of Europe”—The Azores.
My next trip is just days away.
I’ll be in Cabo in a few days, and I can’t wait to get back…
I’ll bask in Cabo’s perfect weather, where the rugged desert meets the sapphire sea. Wake to serene mornings, tee off on world-class golf courses set against dramatic cliffs…
I’ll also be checking in on my investments. I’ve bought more real estate in Cabo than anywhere else in the world. That’s how bullish I am on Cabo and the Baja. Billions of dollars has poured in and you can see an explosion of development in all directions.
Getting the right real estate at the right price is key to playing this. As January opens I’m bringing my Real Estate Trend Alert members a killer deal there on ocean-view condos in a spectacular community. If you’re a member, stay tuned to your RETA alerts. I’m expecting gains of $175,400 four years delivery.
But today let’s place ourselves in the hidden heartlands of sunny Portugal where despite the country’s soaring popularity dreamy bargain properties are still to be found along with a slow- and savoring pace of life…
As you know, I have a research team strung out in bases around the world. I have contacts across my RETA beat. All of these people love real estate and have an eye for a bargain. All of them have their own criteria. Some love rural retreats, others like lock-and-leave apartments in buzzing cities…
One of my team is Eoin Bassett. And here he kicks off our year with a report about dream homes in Portugal’s Alentejo region…
Bargain Homes in This “Secret” Portuguese Hill Town
By Eoin Bassett
The road from Lisbon to the Mamede mountains is good all the way. It takes just over two hours if you don’t stop for coffee. And the closer you get to the mountains, the fewer cars you see…until…
You’re on smooth backroads perfumed by pine forests winding past a patchwork of olive groves and vineyards, through sleepy white-washed villages…
And into the 200 or so square miles of natural park that makes up much of this mountainous region.
The Mamede mountains separate two great rivers of Iberia (Spain and Portugal together are called Iberia.) This region is a haven for wildlife and rare flora. A hikers paradise. Perfect for lazy-day rambles through the countryside…and pretty much a secret.
You could wake up in your hill-town home here and be in Madrid’s best brunch spot in three hour’s drive. From this hidden part of Portugal, a hop across the border to an equally hidden Spain is easy.
The Alentejo offers beautiful historic hill towns, sleepy white-washed villages, and bargain real estate.
The geology is varied and in one town you see schist-stacked walls, in another great lumps of granite. To the north I hear the soil is red…to the south it’s dark…
The altitude makes micro-climates. On a six-mile hike along an ancient Roman road I stopped to pick ripe blackberries, plump figs and admire ferns growing across the road from grapevines and olives.
On one short walk I found myself in an oak wood straight from Lord of the Rings, where gigantic boulders forced the path to weave, then on a sun-dappled grassland plateau, and finally into the cool shade of slender sweet chestnuts.
This is part of Portugal’s Alentejo.
This region is almost a complete secret. I say “almost” because Ronan and our team have been keeping an eye on things there for years.
I’ve heard the Alentejo called the Lung of Europe. Thousands of cork and holm oak trees shelter snuffling pigs that free-range in vast wildflower meadows. The stars are very bright indeed on an Alentejo night. Twilight has a rose-like magic. Mornings are for a stroll and lingering over breakfast.
Or maybe a picnic…there is no better place in the world to have a picnic than Portugal’s Alentejo. I’m a sucker for olives and cheese, fresh bread with some chorizo…the clink of goat bells, the scent of lavender and rosemary…a nap in a thicket of sweet chestnut trees…
The Alentejo gives you olive groves, vineyards and winding country roads that take you into a magical countryside where fresh food is savored, life is peaceful, and the scenery ageless.
Italy has Tuscany. France has Provence…
In Portugal it’s the Alentejo, gentler landscapes but much of the same bucolic Mediterranean-style bliss, tons of history, culture and good food, and at an incredibly low cost.
The Alentejo takes up about a third of Portugal, stretching from around the mid-point of the country all the way south to the Algarve. A dramatic and wild coastline gives way to undulating plains that end in the mountains at the Spanish border where I was based…
Portugal’s Alentejo is easy to explore from the Algarve or Lisbon.
On my last visit I was in one of the regions historic hill towns, Castelo de Vide.
The town is crowned by an imposing citadel, from which the town grew, rolling down the southern slopes along cobbled lanes. To the north the Jewish quarter expanded after Spain expelled the Jews in the 1400s.
Everything is old, most of it preserved, but not in that museum-like way you find in many such towns. This town is lived in. You get your bread and cakes in the bakery…your fish and veg in the market…you have your favorite coffee spots…you can bring your friends for a fine and fancy dinner or go for trendy tapas. There’s a pharmacy…a supermarket down the hill…
You will look in vain for garbage in this town, the street cleaners are ruthless, the locals proud of their public parks and tiny gardens.
Cheerful men whistle as they grill sardines on their doorsteps. Women lean over balconies to share the news with neighbors. A foreigner meets no raised eyebrows, just a wave or a nod of the head, “bom dia”—good day. Tourists do come, just not in droves. At least not yet.
Besides, the Portuguese are courteous folk.
Dogs are walked. Church bells ring. Hens cluck. The wind stirs the trees. Children play…
In fact, on a Friday night I found a bunch of them playing in the square while their parents enjoyed some outdoor theater. It has an artsy air.
Of a morning I breakfasted on little chicken pies and watched the townsfolk stir. Storefronts opened, business began. And in the sky hundreds of swallows did switchbacks from the eaves of the church.
Breakfast…I didn’t know what was encased in the pastries so I ordered them. Lightly herbed chicken.
I think of hill towns as a bit like condo buildings…
The amenities are shared. Everyone can enjoy the town’s clean and modern swimming pool. At viewing points around you find little parks laid-out in freshly clipped box hedging with roses and a bench. The cafés and bars are where you meet.
Tourism was on a tear in Portugal before the pandemic and it’s continued that way. Yet tourism is still fairly undeveloped and low-key in this part of the country. To book my Airbnb I had to send money by bank transfer. And use Google translate. Not a big deal but not effortless either. And that could spell opportunity…
Just do a better job marketing and organizing your village home into a rental…and own something special.
Spring is the busiest time of year for tourism and short-term rentals in the region. Wildflowers are at best, temperatures the most pleasant. By summer it’s getting hot, August and July are the hottest months followed by September.
Winters in these mountains are fairly cold and rainy, but that’s when you head south perhaps to your Algarve base…
So what about the real estate?
Well, I have a few picks, but I’ll tell you now that one property that jumped out as worth a serious look is a three-bed home in town listed for $129,567. It needs a bit of work but it has a terrace, which is a major selling point for renting. It’s walking distance to everything and spacious, 1,582 square feet over three floors.
Castelo de Vide, one of Portugal’s most romantic, yet hidden, towns.
For a fuller report you have to stay tuned to Your Overseas Dream Home…
RONAN SAYS: As you might know, another bargain-filled region of Portugal that’s on my radar is the country’s “undiscovered north.”
The stunning towns and cities in Portugal’s far north boast incredible soft-sand beaches…rich history and culture…and stunning food and architecture. Yet, prices here are astonishingly affordable. I expect that to change and prices to rise significantly. So confident am I in the future of this region that I just bought a 5,000-square-foot historic mansion here.
Recently, I prepared a full buyer’s guide on this region for members of my Real Estate Trend Alert group. The RETA Guide to Investing in Portugal’s “Undiscovered North” is a three-part video series and step-by-step report that highlights the towns where I see the biggest opportunity…explains the entire process I used to buy my home here…and gives you all the info and contact details you need to do the same.
This report is exclusively for RETA members, but today you can join RETA with this special offer.
