Silver Coast Living, Algarve Momentum, and a Search for What’s Next

Episode Summary

In this episode of Notes From the Field, Ronan McMahon checks in from Portugal’s Silver Coast with a broad update on where things stand across his Portugal beat—from Lagos and the Algarve to Porto, the Douro Valley, and his own evolving plans on the Silver Coast.

Along the way, he shares what he’s seeing in rentals, where the strongest investment momentum still lies, and why some markets now belong more in the “dream home” category than in a pure profit-driven RETA portfolio.

Episode Description

Broadcasting from Praia d’El Rey on Portugal’s Silver Coast, Ronan opens this dispatch with reflections on the market immediately around him—both as a place to spend time and as a place to own. He shares early results from renting out his own condo, noting that while the broader Silver Coast rental market remains far weaker than the Algarve, truly special beachfront inventory can still perform far better than expected.

He then turns to the Algarve, where the market continues to strengthen in exactly the way he has long anticipated. In Lagos especially, Ronan sees multiple trends now converging at once: retirees relocating from northern Europe, remote workers and young families seeking international lifestyle bases, tourism returning in force, and a chronic shortage of high-quality inventory. In his view, Lagos remains one of the most complete lifestyle-and-investment stories in Europe.

Ronan also gives an update on what may become the next—and possibly final—major Lagos opportunity of significance: a landmark project tied to one of the most important pieces of undeveloped land in the town. For those already in earlier Lagos deals, he notes that the track record continues to strengthen, with strong appreciation and highly supportive rental fundamentals.

Beyond the Algarve, Ronan shares more personal reflections from the Silver Coast, where his own lifestyle purchase has become something more significant. What started as a part-time base has evolved into a much bigger plan: finding or creating a more permanent home there. He walks through a failed house purchase, what went wrong in due diligence, and why the area continues to pull him back.

Finally, he recaps a recent trip to Porto and the Douro Valley. Porto, in his view, is now more of a lifestyle city than a true RETA opportunity—beautiful, dynamic, and highly livable, but no longer offering the kind of obvious value he looks for in a pure investment play. The Douro, on the other hand, sparked his imagination as a destination for affordable, scenic lifestyle real estate that may not meet strict RETA criteria, but could be deeply appealing for the right buyer.

In This Episode

Ronan covers:

• Rental performance and expectations on Portugal’s Silver Coast
• Why certain niche beachfront properties can outperform broader market averages
• The latest on Lagos and why Algarve demand keeps accelerating
• How retirees, remote workers, and returning travel are reshaping the market
• Why Lagos may still have one final major opportunity ahead
• The urgency around Portugal’s changing Golden Visa rules
• An update on Ronan’s Val de Lobo foreclosure investment
• Why unsolicited buyer interest is a major signal of inventory scarcity
• Why Porto no longer looks like a pure RETA play
• The Douro Valley as a compelling lifestyle market for second-home buyers
• Why Ronan and his wife now want a bigger, more permanent base on the Silver Coast

Key Takeaway

The best markets evolve in stages. In the Algarve, the thesis is now playing out with real force—tight supply, rising demand, and mounting urgency. On the Silver Coast and in the Douro, the case is more nuanced: not always a pure profit play, but potentially powerful from a lifestyle and long-term value perspective.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to your notes from the field. This is where I bring you my latest boots on the ground research, research that you can profit from. And as I'm recording, it is 8 02 a.m. I'm looking over the the beach at Praia del Rey. The early morning sunshine is just glinting off a old historic home on a on a cliff. More about the Silver Coast in a while. What's coming next? I want to bring you up to speed on my experience here in the Silver Coast, my experience from the perspective of rentals, my experience from the perspective of hunting for a new home, and also just general experience of being here and spending time. And then finally, I want to tell you about my trip last week to Porto, which was followed by what was intended to be uh an a three-day cruise, uh three-day vacation along the duro. It was fantastic. Um I couldn't help myself and maybe found some opportunity about an hour and a half outside of Porto. Probably not retain deals, and by that I mean not deals that you would buy purely to make money, but some really, really interesting lifestyle perspectives. Um, I guess also I hope you're all reading um your Dream Home letter. It's part of your subscription. This is the place where I talk about other deals that maybe don't cut Rita Muster from a pure investment perspective. And you know, I think for for many of us, we we buy real estate from multiple perspectives. So, you know, here in here in Portugal, for example, my purchase in Val de Lobo is a hundred percent investment, financially motivated purchase. I'm only in it to make money. It took me about 30 seconds to make the buying decision. It's cold, detached, calculated. Um, it's a decision I make, it's an investment, and um I'm completely uninvolved emotionally. Then here up in the Silver Coast, I've bought a part-time home and I've been looking for a full-time home, and that is a very, very different purchasing decision and um and process. And so the idea with the Dream Home Letter is that we'll identify places where you know where maybe the the the Rita pure profit angle um isn't isn't isn't strong, but from a lifestyle perspective there's there's deep value to to to be found. Um so I digress state of our Rita deals in Portugal. Um Lagosh, Algarve, um on an absolute tear. Travel has just bounded back, um the the season is getting extended, the inventory shortages are are getting more and more acute. Um you know everything that we've been talking about, everything that I've been telling you is is playing out. So now we've got the convergence of multiple events. We have we have a new surge and a powerful surge of Scandinavian retirees locating to Lagos post-COVID, enough of being stuck at home in a winter, enough of high taxes. These Scandinavians can just pick themselves up, move with no visa requirements, nada. They can move to Lagos and they can start paying their taxes as Portuguese, um, as Portuguese non-habitual residents. Um, those getting pensions will go, I believe, from paying 50 odd percent in Scandinavia to 10% here here in Portugal. It's it's a really powerful trend that was happening and it's just taken off again um as travel restrictions have been lifted. Remote workers, young families coming in big numbers to live. You know, this change, this throwing everything up in the air and changing how many people live and work is happening and it's real. And remember, you know, people say to me things like, oh, you know, so and people will go back to the office, and of course they will, people will go back to the office, but imagine if only five or ten percent of the people never go back to the office. Now, that that percentage I think is going to be much higher, and we're gonna see a hybrid model where people have a very flexible arrangement where maybe they can go and work from Lagosh for two months and then they need to be back in the office for two weeks and and and and on and on. But you know, a move at the margin is huge. So, you know, the there's this old saying that you know everything happens at the margin. And if all you do is take five or ten percent of the workforce from Europe and North America and say that five or ten percent are now mobile, they're not gonna go back to the office, and the percentages are gonna be much higher. And of that percentage, a small number, a small percentage are gonna seek out the best international destinations. This alone will be a game changer. We've the retirees coming, and now we've got um vacation back in back in full force. So our our Algarve opportunity and our buying moment um has proved to be particularly strong and it's playing out just as expected, and Lagosh is ground zero for that new wave of influx because it's perfectly catered for that market of remote workers, of retirees, because it's not just a resort town. Excuse me. It's not just a resort town. You know, it's got the historic city, it's got the new, it's got the old, it's got the beach, it's got the the modern conveniences, it's it's got everything. So that's why I'm particularly excited that in the next couple of months, um we're I expect we're gonna have our our next lagosh opportunity. I also expect it's gonna be our final lagosh opportunity of of of any significance, and this is an opportunity that's been 38 years in the making. So 38 years ago, a construction project in the best perch, probably the the best piece of land in all of Lagos was halted. The developer went bankrupt. Those of you who've been to Lagosh will know exactly what I'm talking about. There's this hideous ice or shell of construction at the top of the town. Next to that is a big open plot of land which has fabulous views, fabulous aspect, but you know, it was never, it, it never, it was always going to be, you know, the the the shell next door was always going to detract from the value of anything that could happen there. So lo and behold, as with the videos I sent to you, um that shell was being taken down. Um the last time I was in Lagosh, about four or five weeks ago, that's coming down. Um, a new super high-end um hotel, condos, homes, community, um, super high priced, is going in that land. The land immediately next door is owned by one of the families that that the the that we've been working with, that who's been giving us our our our member-only deals. They have got plans for an absolute landmark project too, right next door to to this other project that that's going on the shell. And um, I'm expecting to be able to tell you about that within within the the within the next kind of six to seven weeks, I'm hoping. Um I'm still waiting for a for a final construction license and also for the for the pricing negotiation. But the the parameters in terms of the parameters in terms of pricing that we've been talking about are in a range that I'm comfortable are significantly below market, and that you know has our usual formula of you know, we're we're getting in at the ground floor, we're getting in at significantly less than what other people will pay when it when it comes on the the regular market, and from there we'll have the kind of the the solid capital appreciation and solid rental income that we've been that we've been seeing in Lagosh. So, you know, the this I'm very excited with this. I thought Lagosh was going to be done for us. I didn't expect this building um to get torn down so soon. I expected that this developer would sit on this land for you know for as long as it took, you know, they they don't care. This is their prize jewel, they're they're not going to develop it until you know the the true value of the lot can be revealed, which for for this needed the the the the shell next door to to to to come down. And it's it's happening, it's happening now. For those of you who've got in in Lagosh, um, I mean the the the track record is is is is stellar. Um you know the deals we've got in on, they're showing really, really strong capital appreciation. And when they're delivered, um the rental market is is is really really strong. So congratulations if you if you got in. Um just in the in the alert below, I'll just paste in some of the the updated track record, just some of the stories I've been sharing in the other alerts, just about the the gains that that that Rita members are seeing. Um quick reminder the Golden Visa, um Portugal's Golden Visa is dramatically or is slated to dramatically change from from January the 1st. Um this is pretty much last last call if you want to get in on Portugal's Golden Visa as it stands, and by that I mean if you want to get in on Portugal's Golden Visa by buying non-tour tourist licensed projects in the likes of Lagos or Val de Lobo or anywhere else in the Algarve, you you literally need to be moving on it today. Okay, so the timelines to get in on the Golden Visa. Um lawyers have been telling me you need to have all your paperwork in by November the 15th to have a shot that it gets you know all checked and made sure it's correct and in by in and accepted by the end of the year. To get to the point of getting your paperwork in, you need to take several steps, including you know, getting a bank account, getting a tax ID. So those steps are going to take you, you know, three to four weeks. So if you want to get a golden visa through the purchase of a property in Lagos, etc., you need to be moving on it now. Um so you know there's there's still some availability in Donna Maria and Santa Maria, two great Rita deals. Um so if if if you have an interest in getting the Golden Visa, you you you need to you need to move on it now. Um finally with regard to the Algarve, and just to bring you up to date on my investments there. So as I've been telling you, I bought a bank foreclosure um in Val de Lobo this spring. Well, I guess the the sale closed just before the summer. Um, I started the the process of buying it late last year. Um, this was a condo, there was a bank repossession, it was closed up, we couldn't open the shutters when when we bought it. I bought it with my contact Chris down in the Algarve. Um, we partnered in it together because we were just there together when when we stumbled upon the deal, and we were looking at about 16 different apartments, and this one was the standout one, and we both wanted it, so the only fair thing to do was to was to partner on it. And we couldn't open the shutters. As I mentioned earlier, like that decision process took about 30 seconds because I walked in the door and I saw the the asking price from the bank was 460,000 euros. Next door, practically next door, there was an identical unit for sale for approaching 700,000 euros. Subsequent to that, I saw another listing of 830,000 euros we could buy with no money down. Um, there were holes in the roofs and some issues that looked cosmetic, but I was comfortable just moving forward on a punt because basically, in the absolute worst case scenario of there being some kind of catastrophic water damage or other damage somewhere, we still would have been in the we still would have been been in the money. So the play there was to um was to buy it. Um our offer of 410 was accepted, no money down. The plan was to build it up with two or three years of rental, maybe getting about 40,000 euro a year in in rental income. So that would translate into it being strongly cash flow positive from from the get-go, and then sell it on, you know, then sell it on somewhere in the range of, you know, as I've said, there've there have been other listings there for 830,000 euros. It, you know, I think 830 is is expensive. I I don't think the the condo is worth that. Um, but you know, somewhere in the range of let's say 700,000 to to that 830. And um, so we we rental started, I guess, kind of end of July, early August, and very, very strong, very, very strong August in terms of rentals. I'd say about maybe seven or eight thousand euros in that month alone. But very interestingly, a couple of people who've rented the apartment have either made an offer or asked about possibly buying it, and another another potential buyer has has come knocking. So, you know, we've gone our plans are our our timelines are accelerating, you know. If if you know one of these offers was it was a was a lowball offer, it was I think under 600,000 euros, which is still a lot more than than what we paid for it, but it is a lowball offer, um, to to which we just flat refused. We didn't engage in a negotiation because we we weren't planning on selling at that point. But um the the the the takeaway from all of this is inventory is phenomenally tight in the Algarve. There's a lot of people making unsolicited bids on good properties. That has started with this property. Um I think we're now open to selling for for the right price, and so once you make that decision that you're open to selling, if you get the offer, it kind of begs the question, well, then maybe we should just market it. And that's the point that that we're at. But I expect we'll we'll we'll we're considering listing it for sale. I expect we will. Um, you know, I expect the the the asking or we'll we'll go with a a reasonable asking price, and um that will be you know certainly in the region of 250,000 euro more than more than we're into it, and we're only into it in terms of our own cash with for closing costs plus the renovations, which total about 37,000 euro. So, you know, the this is looking like it can be a very, very quick kind of 7-8 XR in terms of our own cash investment flip with with with minimal minimal work. So um, so I guess what's the what's the takeaway from all of this, you know, it's just that the same thing I always say, you know, put yourself in the right place at the right time with the right people, and just these deals happen. And I think that this is the same whether you're scouting internationally or scouting in your in in your home in your home territory, you know, just put yourself out there with the right connections, with the right experience, with the right understanding of how to assess opportunities, because this specific opportunity purely came from me and some of my contacts. We were out for lunch, we bumped into people from a bank we knew, we started chatting, they got us the bag of keys, we went. So we we were we were open, we were curious, we were talking to the right people, and this just happened. And I guess, of course, the the perk of being a being a Rita member is that me and my team um were out there doing this all the time on on your behalf. So, you know, while I'm here in Portugal, you know, team members have been in Italy, team members have been in Spain, team members are going to Croatia and Montenegro. I'm going to Mexico. Then I'm going on to co to Costa Rica, other team members, you know, so we're we're we're all over the place all the time, having these conversations, making these connections all on your behalf. And you know, uh it takes that breadth of that breadth of coverage and that breadth of experience to to really distill down the the best opportunities. Okay, bouncing back up to the silver coast here in the silver coast, um which has a reputation for um for cloudy, dreary weather this time of year, and it's absolutely at odds with the vista I'm seeing now of joggers running around running along a sun-drenched beach at 8 26 in the morning, and it's absolutely heavenly here. Couple of things. Um the golf vacation season here is in full swing, and is in full swing until the third week in November. So this might really, really surprise that the vacation season extends that long, and all I'm hearing here is it's extending longer and longer. And again, a lot of this is there's a couple of things happening. There's the there's the pent-up travel demand, particularly from Scandinavians. A lot of Scandinavians come here to to golf. Um, and then there's just the the changing behaviors that that I mentioned are around the the Algarve too. So this is a lot of Scandinavians come here to to golf, maybe in Scandinavia. Um like in they've a kind of I guess a similar golf season to the northeast of the the US or or Canada, maybe coming into late September, early October, things are winding down, and then come come mid-late October, early November, they're itching for a fix of of golf and sunshine and activity. So they come here in in big, big numbers. But what's been what's been very interesting to me with my condo is I left to go to Ireland. I so I left my condo for I think it was about 10 weeks or so of summer. I made it available for rental, I covered an entire year's costs in just that period, and um it was basically booked throughout. I think what's really interesting and incredible about achieving that level of bookings is that I only decided my dates and I only opened up my dates very, very close to when I left. So it's not like my rental manager had you know three months to to drum up the business. Um the condo next door to me, which is actually listed on the market, which is for sale, has been literally rented solid, fully rented from early May when I came here, um, right through to November. Um it's just been full, and this is not the level of of occupancy I I expected. And um, you know, I think the reason is that the the rental market here is nothing like the Algarve, to make a broad general statement. I mean, this is where where real estate is so is so interesting and it's such a fascinating puzzle because you go to the Algarve and it's just a red-hot rental market. You know, you go to Lagosh and you know, everything within reason rents phenomenally well. Here the rental market is much, much weaker, but the thing about my building is it's true beachfront. From my terrace, I see the waves crashing. I feel the the I can feel the feel the sea air rolling through, rolling through my apartment at night. It's absolutely beautiful and it's special, and beachfront is rare, period. Beachfront in Europe is phenomenally rare because there's so much restrictions around development. So what what I have here is the best, you know, the the the most rentable thing because it's got these these very specific attributes. So while the the rental market as a whole isn't that strong, because I've got something with these special attributes, you know, I can I can still do very well from a from a rental perspective. But the idea behind buying here wasn't too that this this was not a purely financially motivated purchase. This was this was a type of purchase which, you know, in terms of of what I described earlier with the dream home letter would fit into the dream home letter category of purchase. I've I've a more sophisticated set of criteria because my criteria here include things like my personal preference for being close to golf, my personal preference not to ever have to use air conditioning, um, my desire to get a good deal to pay below market, and my desire to have rentability. Because what I always want, irrespective of the type and the reason for making a real estate purchase, I always need to understand what my exit is going to be. And I always knew or I was all always felt certain that with this condo, if for whatever reason it didn't work out as a place for for me to spend time, that I could always cover the cost by renting or resell, um, at least getting my money back and hopefully, hopefully a bit more, because I was able to buy below market because I found a motivated seller who had bought in a previous iteration, he had bought it as a bank foreclosure about five, six years ago. So the the previous owner got an amazing deal as a bank foreclosure. Um then was in some level of motivation or distress, financial distress around around COVID, I was able to get a get a good deal. Not an amazing deal, nothing like the deal I got in in Val de Lobo. Val de Lobo was just for the money. I saw it, I bought it, I knew it was worth a lot more. This was this was a thing where I I wanted it as a base. I could justify it on the basis that the the rental income would always cover the costs if I didn't use it, and I could all barring catastrophe, I'd always be able to say sell it and you know cover my costs of sales, and you know, probably have have a little bit left over. Um but interestingly, the the experience, um, my wife's and my experience here has been so positive that the apartment no longer serves the the purpose. Um it doesn't work for the amount of time that we want to spend there because we both work from home, we need offices, we want of space for for for visitors, and it's perfect as a vacation condo, it's perfect as a part-time living condo, it would be perfect if we weren't working. Um but we for we've decided we want to spend much more of the year here. So to do that, we want a house with a garden and with trees and um with a proper office, proper video room, um, space for guests, um an apartment that's part of the so we want all these things that a two-bed condo isn't. Um so the we thought we had found that. Um we had identified a home that we thought was perfect. Literally, just about four minutes' drive from here. It's outside the resort of Praia del Rey. It's like a beautiful corner site, um nothing but the the Obadosh Lagoon in front of us and a protected forest to the right. We've a neighbor, we would have had a neighbor to the left, but it was frontline, little road, privacy space, trees, fruit trees in the garden. Um the the house was the the house was arranged in that all the living space was was upstairs, downstairs was a big 2,000 square foot untouched garage space that the plan was to convert it into all these things. And um so I yeah, we got all our ducks in a row, and um I didn't send I didn't do I didn't commission an engineer's report until after my offer was accepted, and I didn't make my offer until I had all my ducks in a row, and my ducks in a row meant all the the paperwork for the bank accepted and approved, money in place, um yada yada yada. Because one thing I don't like about how they do property transactions here is that when you sign a contract, the the money goes to the seller, and you know you can negotiate conditions to that contract, like subject to mortgage or subject to other stuff, but it's just uncomfortable because whenever whenever you lose control you lose control over that money, or that money isn't in a place that it's controlled by lawyers or escrow under a certain set of criteria, you you you run the risk. You run the risk of a dispute, you run the risk that that money is gone, you run the risk that whatever, you have to wind up with a lawsuit to get your money back in the event that one of these conditions isn't met. So, so I didn't want to, I wanted to make an offer. I'm a firm believer in not negotiating, not negotiating in a conventional way. I set a course that works for me and that I believe can work for for the seller, and the seller can go with that or or not. So I made a pretty unconventional offer, which was pretty much to go straight to excuse me, pretty much to go straight to closing without um without the step in the middle. And um got all my ducks in a row. Didn't send in an engineer before before the offer was accepted, because I don't like that's a bad signal to give to a seller, because the seller then can think, oh, the these people are so heavily committed, they're already spending money. It's just uh and always having the kind of the engineer's report as the final step, you know, that can always leave the door open for additional negotiation if if if needs be. Um but excuse me, but lo and behold, um, the engineer found rising damp and other things that had been kind of tarted up and covered over, and long story short, it turned out to be a whole other project. What we thought was going and what was represented to us as a cosmetic project was a much much bigger project, so we've cancelled our offer and we're back to square one. House hunting on the silver coast, and we leave next Friday, so it looks like that house hunting is going to be deferred now until we come back in the in in the spring. But between now and then, I'm looking at some lots with the the view to exploring the the possibility of of buying a lot and and and building up here. So moving on to the final and most recent stop. Um I was in Porto last week. Well, I was in Lisbon the the week before Porto. Um Porto last week. The Porto, one of my favorite cities for for for a city break. I just love it. It's just one of the most wonderful cities that you just have that mix of history, vibrant food scene, you've got beaches to to either side of the city. It's just one of my favorite cities. One of my favourite cities, full stop, you know. I mean, I remember liking Barcelona as a city 20 years ago before it became afflicted with with all this crazy over tourism and petty crime and all these things. And I now think that Porto is kind of like that, but much much nicer and much better beaches and all these things. But from our Rita perspective, I'll cut to the chase here, just forget it. I mean, our opportunity was 10 years ago. Um prices here are are high. I mean, these new renovated apartments run from 450 to 450 to 600 euros per per square foot. I mean, so basically what what you're talking about is five or six hundred thousand dollars for a small eight, nine hundred square foot apartment in a renovated historic building. Now that's the the higher end of the market, and they're really, really nicely done. And but it's the the I I just don't I'm not seeing any investment angle, and so much of this has been fueled by golden visa money, which now is unless they do the government as a dramatic U-turn, um, that's being cut off. Um you know, the it just doesn't it just doesn't add up for me, you know. Salaries in salaries in Portugal are low, but salary salaries in Portugal are low, but there also seems to be a lot of money sloshing around here, a lot of money old and and new. But the thing about Porto is that it's a big city. It's not like it's not like these high-end apartments are just in one or two neighborhoods. They're right across the Central Historic District, they're they're right along the Juro, they're in on the beaches, on either either side of the the the river mouth. There's a lot of them. And um it's you know, I mean, I'm I'm struggling to to understand how it all works. And you know, maybe there's something I'm missing, but you know, irrespective, the markets where we do well is situations like that Val de Lobo apartment where where I bought in the door 30 seconds, it's just so friggin' obvious this is a screaming deal. And so I was kind of talking to my team when I was in Porto about possible angles, and then I was there like, hey, it's almost like I'm trying to sell myself on the investment case for this because I've invested in coming here and and and checking it out. But that's just crazy. The we do well, where the opportunity just screams at us and hits us so hard it knocks us over. That's not Porto. My Porto takeaway, go there for city breaks, go there for vacation. If you want to live there, do live there. Um, rents are not low, but on a as a yield basis, they're low. And if I was living there, I would live, I would explore the beaches south that's around Villanova Gaia. The so there is there's beaches on two sides of the river mouth. On the the north side, which is the traditionally super high-end part of town, they're expensive and it's pretty congested. The beaches on the other side of the mouth, which are nicer and it's really beautiful, but it's a less swanky part of town, but still really nice. Um, much more inexpensive. You know, spend three or four hundred thousand euros and you get a beautiful apartment overlooking the water. That's a nice lifestyle bag. So um, you want to make money um for a true Rita offering, forget about Porto, look elsewhere, find find the next Porto, but learn, and this is what we need to always do rather than be disappointed that the opportunity is past or feel feel sorry for us as we need to say, what drove this opportunity? And look for the next places where that same set of circumstances are are playing out. And you know, I remember I got into this beat of of international real estate because um because things were so good and strong in my home market in Ireland, but I realized how frothy they were getting. I realized values were just unsustainable, and I went out into the world and I looked for places that the same set of circumstances are playing out. So I mean that that would be my recommendation to all of you in in super hot markets, particularly if you've done well at home or close to home. You know, you can stick with what you understand by just taking a step into other markets and looking for places where the same set of circumstances are happening. But finally, duro and put it on your must travel list. Um, my parents have been visiting um kind of as part of we we went to Porto together, um they did the tourist stuff. I went scouting, honestly. I I think I think I think my scouting felt like more fun than some of the tourist trap stuff that they were doing, but then we headed off on a three-day river cruise of the Juro. It's absolutely fabulous. I gotta share some of my photos and videos below. But what what blew that the scenery is beautiful as a tourist experience go, but we stopped off in a bunch of these um these villages, and you know, part of the tour was was by bus. And this whole area that that we were visiting, it's only about an hour and a half from Porto, and you know, you can find these just amazing homes or like village homes for under 100,000 euros that need renovation, very big historic village homes that need renovation for 150,000 euros, um big spacious homes with great views of of the valley for you know maybe four or five hundred thousand euros. But what's very interesting is there are a lot of apartments in in these towns in very unappealing aesthetically buildings. So, I mean, these are apartment buildings that I won't call them communist, but I'll call them. Borderline communist era, ugly concrete buildings. But these are big apartments and they're set up as homes. And in each of these buildings, there's kind of they have big terraces, and there were some kind of top floor units that I could see with big outside living spaces and amazing views along the duro. And again, all for you know under 150,000 euros. So you could be in a building that looks quasi-communist era from the exterior, but inside, when you're looking along the duro for like a very modest amount of money, you could just have incredible views. And remember, with those with these low mortgages now, you could be talking about a total cost of ownership, including taxes and hoas, of like three or four hundred dollars per per month, even less. So um the euro is is as a travel experience, go absolutely fabulous. Um they're they're amazing river cruises that go all the way into Salamanca in Spain. The next time I go, um next year we hope to do a five-day trip that will go go all the way into Salamanca. Um the go as a travel experience. If you're looking for a anexpensive village bolt hole in a place, which and again look at these photographs, you know, there's beautiful rivers, it's green, it's lush, the weather was perfect, you're an hour and a half from from Porto. If you're looking for a second home or a bolt hole or a primary residence where where these things are are important, um I would I would look at the the the the the duro and um I'll be back for sure. And there you go. On that note, um thanks for thanks for sticking with me this long. And um there's still joggers going past surfers, surfers now. I'm I'm certainly going to miss it here, but I'm very happy that I'm heading for for Cabo. And you know, it's it's interesting. The there's a in a lot of ways, there's there's a lot of similarities, huge differences. Don't don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Portugal Silver Coast is the same as Cabo, but there there are there are similarities, there's similarities in the the beaches, there's similarities in in where I live, there's kind of similarities in the weather in the times that I spend here. You know, Cabo in the winter temperatures are probably a little bit higher, and humidity is a bit lower. Here temperatures have been in the range of you know, kind of high 60s to high 70s in the time that I've been here. Humidity at times can be a bit higher. Sometimes there is fog. We had quite a bit of fog in May, but no fog since I've got here, whether since I've come back, um we had a couple of very heavy rainy nights, but other than that, it's just been pristine and perfect. Whether that's typical, I don't know. I'm going to need to run a run a few more experiments and spend another couple of springs and falls here, and I'll I'll keep you posted. But yeah, on a on a personal note, the the big news from for for me for the Silver Coast is that I've liked it so much, my wife and I have have liked it so much that we we plan to make a much more permanent home here, and that means spending spending less time in these other places where we've got bases and consolidating some of that time into a home here with trees and with a garden and with all these other conveniences. And again, the great thing about having bought those other bases well is it just means um I'm extending the rental season in those other places, you know. We go from here to Cancun, then I go on to Costa Rica, then by the time I get back to Cabo, it'll be into November. And our tenant in Cabo, we've had someone renting for the past six months, they're almost begging us to extend their lease because they can't find somewhere else. Um so once I get to Cabo I'll be telling you all about what's happening there in terms of the the rental market, um, and also you know, our I'm working on our next deal there, which hopefully will will be coming soon. So there you go. Thanks. See you soon. Take care.