Searching again for land in Portugal

20 February. Meda de Mouros, Portugal.

After a wonderful journey through east and west Europe, in which we visited Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Venice, and Arles, we are now back in Portugal and continue our quest for a piece of property. Spring is beginning and the temperatures will rise soon, and we are in good spirits that we will find something this year. Meanwhile, we are trying to connect with like-minded people, and our Facebook group is doing pretty well.
It has been a great journey that we enjoyed a lot as a family. On Yeon's blog you can find some gorgeous pictures of Miru visiting yet another bunch of European capitals. Back in Portugal, we are working on ways to increase our fluency in the only language that is spoken on the marketplace: the language of money. And we need it to convince the current owner of a piece of fertile property to give it to us.

Searching Portugal property online

Just in case if our readers are also looking for property- here is the list of websites we use to look for property in Portugal:

1. chavetejo.com
2. pureportugal.co.uk
3. rightmove.co.uk
4. olx.pt
5. custojusto.pt
6. portugalmidlands.com

Why do we want land

The at first glance obvious answer would be that we don't want to pay rent. But we've seen how expensive it is to maintain a property (digging boreholes, going to bureaucratic procedures, repairing the roof, sourcing firewood, back-up generators, clearing access tracks, repairing frost damage - everything cost a lot of money). I guess we feel that at least we have a choice, whereas with rent it's either pay or leave. The second most important reason for us as Couchsurfers is simply that we want to be able to host. As many people as we like, without asking permission to the landlord. Every day, year round. Dozens of people. We'll put up a shack to sleep our Couchsurfing guests in the summer :) Our most important reason is the ability to plan long-term, to identify with the land, ultimately to take the land back, to detach the land from its monetary value and re-attach a real value of rootedness, a value that is determined anew every day by the interactions taking place on the land, and not by speculators sitting at a desk. So we want to prevent "investors", people who consider from the beginning that they'lll sell out one day. We want to burn our money in this land, turning it into a gift that keeps giving, rather than attempting to benefit as recepients of its cancerous growth. That commitment against get-your-money-back mentality can appear quite strong. Now we're talking! How do we find like-minded people?

Sustainable Living Village Network

We've created a facebook group where we ask the right people to find each other. I have no idea if it will work (there is grounded scepticism because really motivated people just show up in the real world, on the Internet everyone can pretend). But I do think it's worth trying. Have a look and let me know what you think.