Portuguese Property (With Spanish Views) Facts and Prices

This exclusive quality build riverfront Portuguese property on the River Minho / northern border with Spain is available for sale;

Property with 9000 sqm of Urbano title land and long riverfront border in, deservedly, one of the most fashionable areas of the Minho / North Portugal.

Price: €750,000 Euros (or offers above)

The sellers are prepared to accept payment in another major currency (such as GBP or USD) at the true market exchange rate if this helps. See price in GBP. See price in USD.

Extra option 1 - Additional 1500 sqm of (horticultural) land, add €40,000
1500 sqm of land on a separate title deed / number that guarantees privacy along the property's southern border. This land is higher than and alongside the entrance drive to this property. Therefore anyone standing on it looks down onto the property grounds. This additional land is already fenced and treed off along its own southern border, providing both a further private garden / grounds area and privacy for the main property itself. Ideal for a couple of log cabins with some views down to the river. Total property / grounds price €790,000 Euros See price in GBP. See price in USD.

Extra option 2 - A further 3200 sqm of (mixed zone) land, add €85,000
Please see: Extra Building Land - Available separately for €90,000, this parcel of land combined with the main property's grounds and the other above extra land option would increase the total footprint to 13,700 square meters. Perfect for building a fairly substantial house / villa, or for adding up to 4 logs cabins, or for use as grazing with stables.
Total property / grounds price €875,000 Euros See price in GBP. See price in USD.

To Make An Inquiry:
Please contact the present owners directly: requires Javascript to be enabled - if you can not see / click the email link, type out

There are some property land purchase taxes in Portugal; please see below.

Notes / Interesting Facts / Ideas:

1) All existing quality wood and leather furniture (retail over 40,000 Euros) available for €20,000 Euros.

2) This property can be kept as it is, as a secluded exclusive private home or developed as a tourism accommodations business or even gated private exclusive community. The top guest floor of this property being truly ideal for bed & breakfast holiday rentals. In addition, perhaps if someone added more accommodations to the grounds, the lower floor could easily be sectioned off from the main living areas on the other floors and used as a guest dining area (with adjacent large kitchen) / communal lounge with bar. The process for offering tourist accommodations is now, since 2008, very easy, inexpensive, quick and simple (see: Alojamento Local); you can take in paying guests the moment you file your application at the local town hall.

3) The main / original 9000 sqm of land is Urbano title and possibly two additional houses could be built where there are currently grape vines and a fruit orchard. The buyer could therefore possible lessen their investment by separating and selling this land off to a builder / developer, or they could possibly build additional properties themselves to use, sell, lease or rent.

4) A number of log cabins could be added to the grounds to offer a holiday / vacation accommodations business. There is a perfect location for two log cabins (plus a secluded space for a guest pool) which would afford visitors river views without really impacting privacy, the home or grounds as they are; this location is within the extra land offered under "Option 1". If someone wanted to maximize the tourism business element, perhaps up to 10 log cabins could be added (4 in the exiting grounds, 2 on the land offered in Option 1, 4 on the land offered in Option 2).

5) Because of the location very close to the Vigo Dry Port (Vigo port expansion) and a station on the Iberian high speed rail link both due for completion in 2013-2014, certain local real estate prices are expected to rise steadily even dramatically over the next 10 years. Exclusive properties such as this one are likely to do very well because of the creation and influx of wealth; the rise in senior commercial management looking for special homes.

6) In 2007 the current owners had a valuation of this property (with 13,700 sqm of land) of €1.4 million Euros. This admittedly was a speculative price and before the global recession, but it does give you an idea of the mid to long-term investment potential of the property as prices generally have not changed that much in this area.

7) This property is 100% legal; it comes with Habitation License, full clear freehold title (without any lien or unpaid taxes), Urbano title and the swimming pool is listed on tax / council registration documents.

Other;

There is a tax "IMT" (Imposto Municipal sobre Transamissões) and "Stamp Duty" on all property purchases in Portugal. The IMT for this property is 6%, the stamp duty is 0.8%. The IMT for building land is 6.5%, stamp duty 0.8%. For details, see Buying Costs in Portugal.

Be aware many sellers / agents under-quote both the property selling price and IMT on the basis they expect the buyer to agree to declaring a lower than actual purchase price; this common practice is done to reduce the tax amounts paid. The sellers of this property have no need to make this a requirement on the buyer; the declared purchase price is totally and solely the prerogative of the buyer.

Please note: land sizes are estimations based on aerial photography and on the grounds within the walls / fencing (the private grounds); this does not include the river bank area itself of course.

Adjoining woodland (7,200 sqm) just out of view to the left of the above photo was recently offered to the present property owners for €100,000, if any buyer is interested Although the woodland can never be built upon, just adding it to the existing land parcel should see its value immediately double. The local council / camara have plans to compulsory purchase part of this woodland at some stage to use as grounds for the camp site they are building nearby (see map on extra building land page). This is actually a very good thing for this property and likely increase its value. It is therefore probably wise to wait before buying the section woodland actually next to this property and not destined for acquisition by the council / camara, not least as the price per square meter may actually come down. The IMT for rustic land is 5% plus stamp duty again at 0.8%

The owner of the riverfront agricultural land west of this property has also said he would sell if the price was right. No building rights / permits would go with this land but it would allow expansion and an overall increase in the value of this property.

Property Facts:

Set out over three floors, the lower floor is partly built into the ground (keeping it very cool in summer), the upper floor is within the well insulated roof.
Six bedrooms*, one with en suite bathroom and large balcony overlooking private grounds and river. Three* of these bedrooms are on the top floor and are perfect guest rooms, with the other three on the middle family floor and benefiting from a large family bathroom. *The 6th bedroom on the top floor is currently used as office).
Study / library / office (with entry phone for gate house), large family lounge (with French made contained wood burning fireplace with marble surround), breakfast room / 2nd kitchen, entrance hall and main bedroom / bathrooms with common central indoor garden are on the middle floor (solid oak flooring except for breakfast room and bathrooms). Radiators throughout. All external windows and doors are locally quality made, wooden, double glazed, insect screened and have wooden shutters (except for front door).
Air conditioned lower floor with very large TV lounge and dining room with bar (all quality terracotta tiled), with adjacent large fully fitted kitchen (with entry phone for gate house) which itself leads out onto an outdoor granite dining area with spectacular river / mountain views. In addition there is a large utility room, a washroom, shower bathroom / wet room and adega (wine cellar). Radiators throughout.
Upper floor with the most spectacular views has guest bedrooms, guest lounge (with wood burning fireplace), guest recreation area (can be used as a kid's play area or equally as a small dining area), shower bathroom and many storage areas. Radiators throughout.
Recently installed oil fired central heating (it gets a little cold in winter) and fully insulated roof (insulates against heat in summer and cold in winter).
Long private "kubos" granite laid driveway leading from entrance gates down all the way around the house and down to the river gate.
Large gate house which can double as a dog pen or storage area (very useful for bikes). Electronic vehicle and pedestrian gates with entry phone linked to the property. Post box, electricity and water meters just outside the gates. Gate house has external and internal pedestrian gates.
Large separate garages for 3 vehicles plus adjacent large dog pound and work space.
Full sized (11.8 m x 5.8 m - excluding steps and children's pool) swimming pool with children's section, fenced and gated for child safety. The concrete pool was built by one of the leading Spanish companies with strong foundations and a 20 year guarantee.
Large water fountain next to house and family garden area, again fenced and gated for child safety and to prevent dogs from entering the area; family garden with large stone bbq has big established cork oak tree in it which is a perfect shade tree.
Telephone line (with broadband), mains electricity and mains water, plus very good mobile (with data) cover from both Spain and Portugal (useful for phone and Internet backup), and a large parabola satellite TV dish which currently feeds two British SKY TV boxes (very good signal) in different areas of the house.
One of the lowest crime rates in western Europe. However, prevention without detriment to the beauty of this property has been well done. Security / alarm system with movement sensors throughout the property. Ornate strong bars to rear lower windows. Steel moveable chalice can be used to separate lower floor with other floors. Strong exterior doors with special bolt locks where access is at ground level. Strong exterior wood shutters can be used to increase security. Lockable strong interior doors.
George / Jorge, a Pyrenees Mountain Dog is available at no extra charge; an excellent guard dog, very large, deep threatening bark, but a superb and safe family dog to all known to him (including the postman, although he does still bark at and frighten him).
Large duck pond / irrigation tank which is fed by a small natural water spring and / or a river water pump (licensed); this tank feeds the ground's irrigation systems including sprinklers and drip emitters.
Extensive mostly granite pathways around the grounds, including 3 sets of steps down the bank section of our grounds to the lower perimeter fence / conifer hedge screen.
Grounds completely walled / fenced to height of 2 meters. We have a burglar / intruder alarm with mobile phone connection also. Although this is a virtually crime free area, our security (including dogs) make us a very unattractive proposition for what criminal activity there is or one day may be.
Large chicken house and coop away from the house (can barely hear them) near the river gate, allows us to have free range chickens which are protected from wildlife, etc. Plum and other trees / bushes help screen this out of house view.
Large vineyard (255 vines) with wine and several types of eating / table grapes, plus 6 kiwi fruit vines.
Fruit orchard (cherry, peach, plum, apple, pear, apricot, nectarine, lemon, lime, mandarin, navel orange) with adjacent greenhouse.
Large rock garden runs alongside large part of driveway down to river.
Large bank / hill section of grounds planted with many fruit and nut trees (mostly cherry plus hazelnut, almond, strawberry and pineapple guava, cooking and eating apple, Asian pear, pomegranate, walnut, nispero and quince used to make marmalade) plus flowering and erosion control bushes / plants (yellow jasmine, etc.).
Large circular flower garden outside the lower floor TV lounge.
Flower garden and summer house next to the duck pond; fence around pond has passion fruit, clematis and other vines growing on it.
Vegetable and second fruit tree (red / black and white figs, persimmon, arbutus, apple, pear, guava, pomegranate, Asian pear) garden area near to the river / lower perimeter fence. Granite slab and Nerium Oleander flowering bush walkway runs alongside the perimeter fence which is also planted with a cypress bush / tree screen.

Original architect plan below: perimeter wall / fence, garages and pool have since been added, plus extra land bought / added.