Gov’t opens tender for new economic housing, final list presented next year

Yesterday, the government announced the opening of the new tender for economic acquisition housing.
In a press conference held on July 12 by the Housing Bureau (IH), president Arnaldo Santos announced that following the publication of four new orders from the Chief Executive (CE) establishing the conditions and rules for the new tender, a new tender will be opened tomorrow, July 14, by the IH.
This tender aims to give ranked applicants the opportunity to acquire housing units which will be built on five plots of Zone A on the new landfills.
According to IH, the new tender will include a total of 5,254 housing units, from which the majority 4,478 (85%) are two-bedroom apartments and only around 5% (242) are one-bedroom apartments.
In his speech, Santos noted that given the new law for the economic housing coming into force, this will be the first tender subject to the new rules restricting housing units acquired under this scheme to remain classified as economic housing units, thus preventing the units from being resold on the private market.
“From this tender, all the economic housing will keep this classification and the listing of the candidates in a points list [according to their score] replaces the former lucky draw in the computer,” Santos said. He added, “at the same time, the application procedures were simplified, with the candidates being exempted from delivering documents issued by other public services,” as this communication is now done internally.
According to Santos, due to the simplification of the application procedures and forms, and the option to deliver the application forms online, the IH expects to have a final order list ready during the first half (H1) of 2022.
“We expect to publish the final list in the first half of the next year,” the president of IH said. He added, “in upcoming years, there will be several public projects that will initiate public tenders and construction processes to respond to the demands of the population.”
Under the new rules, residents who acquire any of these housing units can only resell them to the IH. In that instance, the acquisition price of the units by the government will be the same as the initial price, but all the necessary costs for renovation works to return the unit to the original livability conditions will be deducted from this resale price.

Economic housing prices to be calculated case-by-case
Questioned on the matter, IH representatives noted that the prices for the housing units to be tendered will be established at a later stage by an order of the CE. This order will take into account factors such as constructions costs, administrative costs, and the land plot premium – which depends upon the location of the land plot.
The tender, which opens on July 14, will run for four months until November 12, and will be only take into account the housing units included in the buildings to be constructed at the land plots A1, A2, A3, A4, and A12 in Zone A of the new landfills.
These units will include three different housing sizes (1- to 3-bedroom apartments) and a total of six different design options.

New system to benefit different households
In one of the CE orders published yesterday, the government updated the upper thresholds for applicants and household income, as well as the value of assets.
Single-person applicants must now have a monthly income between 12,750 and 38,350 patacas. The maximum threshold of net assets has also been set at 1,254,900 patacas.
In the case of households with more than one person, the minimum ceiling increases according to the number of people within the household; the maximum ceiling has been set to 76,690 patacas. The same applies to the net assets for households of two or more people, which is now 2,509,800 patacas.
The new point system benefits households with more permanent residents and those who have held this status for a longer period.
Households that include older members, people with disabilities, and underage children will also see their number of points grow, and consequently, will have a higher position on the final order list.

Online system can take up to 3,000 applications per hour

In response to media inquiries on the expected number of candidates that will apply for the economic housing acquisition tender, the president of the Housing Bureau (IH), Arnaldo Santos said that there were about 34,000 applicants the last time a tender of this kind was held. He additionally hinted that a similar figure is expected now.
As for the capacity of the new system to receive online application requests, Santos added that the new system can process up to 3,000 applications per hour. This leads him to believe that the process, under the new simplified rules, will be much quicker and easier.