Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city. Luckily, we have an older contract that cannot be changed as easily as newer ones. I'm not thrilled by the possibility that our landlord might cancel it some day, however, e.g. for relatives to move in. Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding
anything, even though we both work full-time and have salaries above average. It's crazy because all new homes and apartments are "luxury apartments" with insanely high pricing both for buying and renting. They're mostly empty or are (often illegally) rented out as holiday apartments. It's incomprehensible to me how ordinary Portuguese families survive in Lisbon. I guess most of them have inherited property.
Quite honestly, apart from the generally increasing gap between rich and the poor, one big problem in societies nowadays is that you can simply get richer and richer just from owning property. For example, if you own three ordinary apartments in Lisbon, you can live in one of them and easily make a good living by renting out the other two as holiday apartments. Because cleaning services, guys who do repairs, etc., are cheap in Portugal, this involves almost no work. Moreover, the net worth of your property will continually increase while you do (almost) nothing. I'm not saying I blame these people, I would do the same if I had the opportunity, but this is a huge structural problem in my opinion.
Quite honestly, apart from the generally increasing gap between rich and the poor, one big problem in societies nowadays is that you can simply get richer and richer just from owning property. For example, if you own three ordinary apartments in Lisbon, you can live in one of them and easily make a good living by renting out the other two as holiday apartments. Because cleaning services, guys who do repairs, etc., are cheap in Portugal, this involves almost no work. Moreover, the net worth of your property will continually increase while you do (almost) nothing. I'm not saying I blame these people, I would do the same if I had the opportunity, but this is a huge structural problem in my opinion.