By Andrea Hargraves 
On mainland Portugal there are only 45 municipalities – less than a fifth – where half of the households receive the minimum income necessary to purchase housing using credit: according to data from the Ministry of Economy, the average income in Portugal (€1,091) is only half the amount Required to support payment to the bank: 2,063 euros.
The analysis carried out by the Office of Strategy and Studies, cited by the “Jornal de Negócios”, also pointed out the difficulties encountered not only in the urban areas of Lisbon and Porto, but also in the rest of the continental territory.
Along with Lisbon, the Algarve region has seen a deterioration in housing accessibility, even being the region with the lowest levels of accessibility. In central Alentejo, Beiras and Serra da Estrela concentrate more than a third of the municipalities where there are more families able to make mortgage payments.
The Housing Affordability Index, at the local level, compares average household income with the monthly effort required to cover a credit installment plan.
The result of the study showed that in only 45 of the 278 municipalities on the continent (16.18%), the average income can cover the value of the payments required for houses – mainly concentrated in the interior, with the exception of four municipalities in the Leiria region and two in the Coimbra region. Central Alentejo has the largest number of accessible municipalities – 10 -, as well as seven other municipalities in the region of Beiras and Serra da Estrela.
There is another reality in Vila do Bispo, in the Algarve region, a municipality with the worst access conditions, where half of the families do not have enough income to cover even a third of the payment required for a loan.