The serious real estate company with the crazy name!
How do you pronounce that? It’s the first thing most people ask when they hear about Fastighetsbyrån. It’s a crazy name for a very serious property company, and when I met their new owner and manager, Göran Aadland, I discovered he was also very serious about business but had a bit of a crazy story!
Fastighetsbyrån´s marketing has given non-Scandnavians the option to call them The Swedish Agents, which is certainly more pronounceable. In a very amusing social media post, their agents hit Lagos to record people trying to pronounce the name. Most were unsuccessful, but it turns out that in Sweden, it is not crazy at all.
Pronounced Fastig-hets-byrån it directly translates to real estate bureau – not so crazy! It is owned by Swedbank Group and is Sweden’s largest real estate company. They have been operating in Portugal since 2014. Martin Posch, Fastighetsbyrån’s expert and business area manager in Portugal, told the Swedish media, “Our motto is to follow our Swedish customers. Ten years ago we noticed an increased interest in Portugal and especially the Algarve coast.”
At the end of April, the Lagos office celebrated its 10th anniversary – and to mark the occasion they were joined by Johan Engström, CEO of Fastighetsbyrån. His company is currently setting up a network of offices along the Mediterranean coast with 24 offices in Spain and Portugal,l to meet the property requirements of Swedes, 20% of whom have said they would consider moving to a warmer climate.
Among this statistic is Göran who comes from Gothenburg. He says it is dark and wet for six months, with very few hours of daylight in winter. He first found Lagos in 1986 when he went interrailing through Europe with his partner Vendela. They had first heard about Lagos in their home town and were not disappointed. They stayed for three weeks.
With no direct flights, they didn’t return until 2016, by which time Göran had built up his own media sports and events business, representing the broadcast sponsorships for the Swedish public service television, the Swedish Biathlon Federation and the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation among many others. Göran and Vandela started to look for a second home and bought an apartment in Praia da Luz.
Göran dreamed of a more outdoorsy lifestyle: “I didn’t want to put my life on hold every winter; I wanted to live in the outdoors, so we moved permanently to the Algarve in 2021.” Goran threw himself into retirement at age 56, enjoying the great outdoors with hiking, mountain biking and, of course, the other Swedish love – padel tennis.
However, it was a bitter-sweet experience. “While I loved the Algarve and enjoyed the climate, I didn’t like every day being a Saturday. It was not for me.”
So when Göran saw that the Lagos branch of his home country´s agency was available, he jumped at the chance to join. “I view property brokering as having a similar skill set to brokering deals in sports media.”
He is also fully committed to making property sales a professional enterprise with similar high standards to his home country. To ensure all Portugal employees have the correct know-how and to maintain high standards, Fastighetsbyrån introduced its own training programme and is the first Swedish operator in Portugal to provide certification of its employees, a course in Spain which Göran also attended.
I wonder how he views the market at the moment and ask if prices have become overheated. “I think the pricing is stable, and prime properties, for example, with direct sea views, will still sell for high figures, but there is no doubt that some properties will need to have a price correction in order to sell next year. The Swedish market is now not so strong due to bad exchange rates.”
He is very excited by the new legislation that lifted the restrictions on the issuing of AL licences, which had put a break on the sales of apartments since last October. “Most buyers want to have the option to rent out their property,” he says. “I think the change in legislation allowing the AL licence to pass to a new owner may create a two-tiered system, making properties with that licence more valuable than the same property without a licence.”
With Göran at the helm, is it certain that you will be hearing the name Fastighetsbyrån around Lagos for many years to come, even if it’s not pronounced correctly?
Main image: 10-year Anniversary team photo, left to right: Vanessa Antunes, Miguel Espadinha, Christer Hellman, Linda Claesson, Göran Aadland, Vanessa Hallberg, Ana Amores, Lina Åsard and João Pintassilgo
Retraction of AL law ends Restrictions on Holiday Rentals.
Decree-Law No. 76/2024 was published in the Diário da República on 23 October 2024, lifting the restrictions on the AL licence (Alojamento Local) for holiday rental properties.
Summary of changes
- If you hold a local accommodation licence, it will no longer expire in five years and will be maintained indefinitely
- Licences are once again transferable when you sell the property
- You can apply for the licence without the condominium’s permission, although you will still have to comply with the building regulations, which may prohibit new licences
- The general ban imposed by Mais Habitação has been reversed, giving municipalities the power to issue or prohibit new licences based on each parish’s housing requirements