It's true that Airbnb is only part of the problem. A larger problem is that there is a lot of illegal temporary renting, in fact many people I know have never seen a rental contract. Officially, there needs to be a sign on the house for "alojamento local" but few places have it. I can't blame the apartment owners, if you have another place to stay just renting out one apartment is enough to make a living.
But the problem is even deeper, I recently spoke to a friend on the phone who considers to move to Portugal. He told me that if he rents out his apartment in L.A., he should get about 10,000 USD/mo for it. For that money he could literally rent a whole house in Portugal. How could Portuguese with an average salary below 1,000 USD compete with that on the housing market?
Precisely. People are struggling to internalize how much wealth inequality (both local and global) has shot up in recent years, and instead blame the symptoms of this inequality as if they're the cause.
The woes Portuguese people are feeling now have been felt by the citizens of many countries before. Most of Europe considers its "first world" status as some kind of inherent property. You just need to look outside of Europe to Asia and Africa to see what's going to happen.
But the problem is even deeper, I recently spoke to a friend on the phone who considers to move to Portugal. He told me that if he rents out his apartment in L.A., he should get about 10,000 USD/mo for it. For that money he could literally rent a whole house in Portugal. How could Portuguese with an average salary below 1,000 USD compete with that on the housing market?