Reply to Please help me plan our exploratory trip to plan a retirement-in-Europe second home

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is very hard to answer as it’s so specific to your tastes! [b]Finding a community of people who will accept you (not that people will be horrible to you anywhere, but realistically you are mostly going to be friends with expats) is going to be the hardest part and you’d need a bigger town for that.[/b] I would also say that most people who do this already have the place in mind, so I think you need to do much more research - as in, many more trips - before you should even think about buying. Having owned a home in France for a long time, there are so many things that are still surprising and unexpected, and that is with having spent 1-4 months of my life there every year since I was a child! [/quote]

+1 OP don't discount how difficult it will be to move somewhere in your 50's and become a part of the community. Some small, charming town is going to be more insular and other 50-somethings who lived there their whole lives aren't going to open their social circles to you. Compounding that difficulty is living there only 4 months per year.

Plus how do you plan to maintain the home the other 8 months each year?[/quote]

This. I've lived as an expat in Lisbon for ~10y, 1y in France and 1y in Japan, and socializing is challenging if you don't live there full time - and even moreso if language is an issue. We have friends who split their time between Lisbon & London. Their Airbnb'ed flat in London was a maintenance nightmare; their Lisbon flat got broken into; and their rural quinta had ongoing irrigation/plumbing issues that never seemed to get resolved. They never picked up Portuguese and struggled socially even with expats because people don't want to invest time getting to know you when you're going to leave in a few months.

Cascais (at least the cute part in center of town) is outside of your budget, OP. Unless you're willing to compromise for a tiny shoe box. I think Porto would probably be ok still. But be warned if you ever get tired of the Schengen shuffle, immigration-related bureaucracy for Portugal is becoming a nightmare. We have friends still waiting ~1y on expired papers for their renewal appointment (can't leave without risking deportation and a Schengen ban). Our daughter's citizenship application has been stalled on step one for the past 2.5y.[/quote]

That sounds rough. Why would anyone choose Portugal given those issues?[/quote]

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