MEREDITH
[ 00:00:04 ] Hi. Hi, Portugal Junkies, we are so glad to welcome you back to this, hmm, are we excited about this episode?
Mark
[ 00:00:15 ] We are excited, but not in a 'woohoo', we did good kind of way. I think this is a humbling moment. Yeah. If we could turn the clocks back, we would not have done so in anticipation of that, I think that people embarking on this D7 on like apartment search. If you're coming over here. Yeah, if you're coming over here, I think this one's for you. It's like learn from our mistakes type of thing.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:46 ] So we are going to be talking about our apartment, the first one. Yeah, because this is our second. The apartment we sit in today is not our first one. And, um, we sit here in this apartment today because of the first one. So, but before we get into that, let's talk about what we're drinking, Hein. You've got to talk.
Mark
[ 00:01:11 ] It is, uh, Espumante de Qualidade. That means quality sparkling. Yeah. And it is, it's really good. It's really good. I mean, it's from Lidl. It's $2. 99. It's a semi-sweet, um, Espumante. Yes.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:28 ] And it says Meo Seco. Meo Seco. That's how they say semi-sweet. Awesome. And how much did this bottle cost?
Mark
[ 00:01:38 ] It was $2. 99. It's from Lidl. $2.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:40 ] 99, which is about, well, it's less than $3. 50. Yeah. So, yeah.
Mark
[ 00:01:46 ] And it's, it's good enough just to, it's so good.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:49 ] I'm enjoying it.
Mark
[ 00:01:50 ] Just a sip.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:50 ] Yeah. Especially as it gets to the summertime. It's light and a little bit sweet.
Mark
[ 00:01:55 ] Last couple of days have been beautiful.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:57 ] So, so we're going to start sharing with you what we're drinking. Um, so that'll be our intros. Yeah.
Mark
[ 00:02:03 ] I think that's a, that's a good format to start with.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:05 ] Maybe we should hear it with cheese next time. We'll talk about the wine and the cheese that we're having.
Mark
[ 00:02:09 ] Okay. And then at some point we'll probably get into the content. Probably, maybe. Maybe.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:14 ] Maybe we should just have a whole episode on wine and cheese. Okay. So let's talk apartment. Okay. And let's talk about our big bad mistake. Okay. So again, the apartment that we sit in right now is lovely. Yep. It's a two-bedroom, two bath, big modern kitchen. It's, it's just lovely. And you can see the stone walls behind us. It was, our first apartment had many, many lovely things about it aesthetically, like I just described to you, but it was just too expensive. Yeah. And I think here's the, here's the thing to set this up: We, you know, you have to, you have to have, again, you have to have a lease in place, a year lease in place before you actually apply for your D7 visa. It doesn't have to be effective for that appointment, but it has, I mean, there's not many landlords out here will be like, yeah, I'm going to post date or push out the date.
Mark
[ 00:03:19 ] You know, start it in three months. I won't take any money from it. They're not going to leave it empty.
MEREDITH
[ 00:03:22 ] So you kind of have to take on those costs upfront, whether you like it or not, it is the process. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and then after you realized that, and then you actually start looking for apartments, most people are looking for them remotely, which I don't really see as much of a challenge, but in retrospect, don't you think we made some mistakes there?
Mark
[ 00:03:48 ] For definite.
MEREDITH
[ 00:03:49 ] So we worked with a company who was going to help us find an apartment. Um, and our help, our, our help would end up being a loan. Actually, she would go and like she would get on the call with us and talk through like where we want to be, what our budget is, what are we looking for, and then we would like land on three or four for her to go and see and video us about the apartment. So, one day, and it's supposed to be in a neighborhood called Cero Feta, which is very artsy, there's art galleries, there's like a pedestrian famous pedestrian type of shopping and walk area, there near the metro or near a metro station that was being built, all the things like on paper tick tick tick that were like 'oh' and on top of that, your girl right here literally was falling over the photos, you know it was a two-bedroom, two-bath very modern with a balcony in the front and a balcony in the out the back and a loft.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:04:59 ] Yeah, okay!
MEREDITH
[ 00:05:00 ] So again, you got to remember this was summer of 2023 when we had just decided that this is something that we wanted to do and we didn't know what we didn't know like we were trying to like how much can we downsize? We were in a ridiculously big house for us and I can look Back and say that we knew that then, but like we were in a house that we built, and it was just the two of us, and the dog, and it was almost 3,700 square feet. We were used to a lot of room, whether we used the rooms or not; a lot of it, we didn't use. So when you were faced with that, and go, 'Okay, well is a two-bedroom gonna be big enough for us?' Then the answer would have been, 'Oh, I hope so.'
Mark
[ 00:05:52 ] Seeing the loft, and it was yeah, it just had an accommodating amount of additional space, sort of um away from we could separate. So somebody could be in the living room, somebody could be up in the loft, or somebody could be in the bedroom; you know there was a good amount. Of functionality to the home to the apartment and on top of that, we were the first people in there. Yeah, it had been renovated; it had been even though and that was part of the thing that I think one of the problems is that it was an old building originally. Yeah, and they'd sort of done all the repairs and they'd done all the repairs and they'd done all the repairs and they'd done all the repairs. And the renovations inside. But I think they'd not really taken care of some of the important stuff. Um, so again we'll come into that later.
MEREDITH
[ 00:06:38 ] Let's talk about it now, what do you think are the the what were the drawbacks besides oh let's just talk.
Mark
[ 00:06:44 ] About it, that we went over our budget in choosing this apartment, despite saying we wouldn't right, but let's talk about why I think for why it really comes down to-you're moving across an ocean, you're going to somewhere different; you want to make sure that when you get to where you're going and maybe you've seen it once, maybe you've only ever seen it through virtual tour, so you've never physically been to it before. You sign for it, there's us, and I think when you're moving that far and uprooting everything, you just want something that you know or that you feel you know is going to be a great landing pad, a great Landing point, um, that you're not going to be worried about. Oh my gosh, that am I sure about that fridge or am I sure that that looked okay? Or is it too drastic of a change and so I think it was just making sure that we were comfortable in the space that we were going to land in right? And I think we, we paid dearly; we thought that this place would give us that.
MEREDITH
[ 00:07:52 ] I will; I will also echo that I knew myself well enough to know that I was going to be going through a lot of like emotional change coming from the States here, missing my family, just being exposed to everything that makes you uncomfortable, and so trying to be ahead of that and say okay. But at least our home will be a place that feels comfortable, you know. If we had gone, I always say this now: charm wears off mm-hmm, you know. Like when you get romanticized by a place and you're like, 'Oh my gosh! I want it to feel authentically Portuguese!' But the realities of those kinds of apartments can be like no modern amenities, no air conditioning, you know-things like that that are so drastically different than what we were what we were used to. That's why I thought that that might be too far the other way for us to transition better right? So that's the reason why we went over our budget, yeah... I don't even remember what our budget was.
Mark
[ 00:08:59 ] and i think it was going to be less than 2 000 euros we're paying for this new that new apartment 2500 euros a month i like shaking my boobs because i know better we know better now it just was a situation where we were making the best decisions we could also you know at the time we were having to make these decisions was on the back of okay we've got our appointment with VFS we have to have this this this this and the other in place before that appointment and you know no one wants to run the clock nobody wants to be at the 11th hour and going I don't have this last minute really important thing because if you don't have this if you Don't have a bank account if you don't have any, you're screwed just no point in even going to the VFS to be fair.
MEREDITH
[ 00:09:54 ] I felt like we were out of the clock, I also felt a pressure of like comfortability so that's why we chose the more expensive route and probably went against our gut in a lot of ways. I kind of take responsibility because I was the one who was like 'but', I will say this it's not that was not the only thing wrong with the apartment, so let's talk about the rest of it, yeah, so good.
Mark
[ 00:10:24 ] I don't think this is really important, I think this is really important, I think this is really important, you know we and maybe you guys are coming from A environment that you are very familiar with, you know, be it your hometown or your neighborhood or whatever it is and the house that you're coming from and you're now going to step into another country with a different way of doing everything or a different way of the house presenting itself. But it wasn't just the house that I think got to a point where it was like I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I think got to a point where it was like I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, last the most or the apartment rather it was the fact of when we were shown In the apartment, we didn't really get to see the street and I think that was a failure on our part because we didn't say 'okay, we can you step out front door and show the camera left and right. Right around the area's curb appeal, subconsciously so you can get whatever Google Maps did whenever it did it and so we missed out. And I think this is really, really important again because, you know, coming from America to Portugal, it's different designs of homes.
MEREDITH
[ 00:11:40 ] Yeah.
Mark
[ 00:11:41 ] I just think that if we'd have come and we had have seen that apartment on that street. On that street, in our own eyes, not through a virtual tour, we probably would not. We wouldn't have said yes. We wouldn’t have said yes, because there were just different things that we didn’t like. I mean, it’s one of those unfortunate things, but, you know, we just didn’t like certain aspects of it. But we didn’t see that through the virtual tour. And I think that’s something really important, whether you have somebody scout for you, whether you do it virtually is fine.
MEREDITH
[ 00:12:16 ] We just didn’t ask for that additional look.
Mark
[ 00:12:19 ] Which is a real fail. Yeah. You know. We should have done that. Considered. But I think that’s one of the biggest ones. Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:12:27 ] So the street slash curb appeal. Here's the other thing. We. That apartment was on. That apartment was on the third floor, which is fourth floor for USA.
Mark
[ 00:12:46 ] In US speak.
MEREDITH
[ 00:12:46 ] Okay. It didn't have an elevator.
Mark
[ 00:12:51 ] No elevator. It'll be fine. They said 63 steps. They said, I'll tell you now, I mean, I love going up hills, walking up hills. Don't bother me, but you walk 63 steps up and six or 63 down to take the dog. Then you go to walk 63 back up and then you realize, oh crap, I forgot to go and get the milk 63 down and 63 up. I mean, it's it grates after a couple of weeks days. We misjudged. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I thought I was, it'll be okay. I'll live with it because we've got this great-looking apartment in this fabulous area. And it was. It wasn't. It was.
MEREDITH
[ 00:13:36 ] But when you got up the 63 steps and you open the door, the actual apartment was perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. I have no complaints about that beautiful apartment, which was hard to leave, to be honest. It was good. But. I think. Those. Those. Those things coupled with the €2,500 euros a month, you said it earlier, it starts to become about value instead of the price. If everything was perfection, maybe we wouldn't have been so eager to move. Right. I don't know. Um, I do also think that we just, we're learning. We're learning that. I mean, we even talked about our next place, not needing two bedrooms. You know, we're getting better and better as we experience this life about what's really important. What are we really using? What's a waste for us? How much more can we downsize of our stuff that literally we move in and we put it in a closet and we never see it again until we're ready to move the next time that we don't need it. That's right. Like, and there's a, there is a freedom in that. You guys, that is lovely. And I thought I would never say that because. The downsizing. From. Our house to the first move here was really, really hard in some points for me.
Mark
[ 00:14:55 ] I think it was, it was definitely harder for you.
MEREDITH
[ 00:14:57 ] Well, it was the emotional stuff. It was like leaving behind some of that stuff that I've had with me my whole adult life. Right. And finding a place for it that doesn't come with us and all of that. But like the minute you start peeling away your attachment to those things, the more you think, gosh, that means that we're more mobile. That means we can go here and here and here. And, and maybe spend some time at home. Maybe spend some time in a place that costs even less. Yeah. So I think that's where we're changing. Um, in terms of the, the experience is changing us personally, at least me. I won't speak for you, but I feel that way.
Mark
[ 00:15:33 ] Yeah. But I think also I had a jumpstart on you. Um, you know, moving from England to the States. With one suitcase. One suitcase and one backpack. And essentially that's all I moved here with. Yeah. Um, and so I'd already shed my, my life in that sense. All my. Yeah. All my life. Yeah. So it's been a long time, having said that caveat is thank you to my mum because her attic is full of all my other stuff.
MEREDITH
[ 00:15:59 ] He's like, oh, I've got one of these. I'm like, let me, let me get, it's in mum's attic. It's for all your stuff.
Mark
[ 00:16:05 ] It was, um, because again, there are sentimental things that you just do not and will not get rid of. Yeah. And I think that's important, but at the same time, you know, I, I do believe I had to jumpstart on you for that. Uh, and having moved around a little bit more. to different places more often but it's in terms of going from the states to this new life in this new apartment it was that was a big shift yeah and i think we've shifted again coming to this apartment yeah so we don't have a loft anymore and i don't really miss it we have two bedrooms we have tons of storage well quick correction we have one bedroom and then if you watched and if you watched a recent um tiktok reel or instagram reel might have been on both the other room is currently a walk
MEREDITH
[ 00:17:00 ] -in wardrobe the whole bedroom just a quick shut it just a quick definer of don't need a loft we the other thing about that apartment and i'm going to this is the last final thing i'm going to say about it from a financial perspective places here often want more than one month up front they might want two months up front and then your last month and then a security deposit so think about that for a second at a 2500 euro rate right it was a lot of up front and a lot that our like money was kind of tied into the apartment and then it was kind of tied into the apartment and then it was kind of tied into now of course it was going to come back to us because of our security deposit and the fact that you're paying whatever but um that is where the financial piece comes in where you're like dang and now we could have chosen there were tons of options in terms of apartments that didn't have modern amenities apartments that probably were on streets that we didn't love even more than the store that we were in and we didn't love even more than the store that we were in and we didn't that we were on in the first apartment and you could pay 800 900 euros a month for that what are you going to get and that is a pure like that is Your choice when you're deciding to move over here, you could we could have taken and we talked about this: we could have taken the complete opposite approach and been like, 'Look, if I've got to pay all this money up front and I can't really see the apartment, why don't I just get the cheapest apartment possible and deal with it and we went back and forth, and we went back and forth, and we went back and forth, and we went back and forth about that. I don't think we would have been happy that way.
Mark
[ 00:18:47 ] No, I don't think so, because again, go back to what we said at the beginning: we wanted to... with everything that was. Going on, yeah, and everything that does go on when you're moving the one thing that you want to make sure is that when you close the door when you go to bed when you get up and have your first cup of tea or coffee, whatever it is, wine, that you feel good, that you feel good, yeah, and you you think, 'Okay' because it kind of starts and ends your day where you are, where you sleep, and I think that's a huge thing. Um, so it was a mistake to pay that much in terms of financial, but in terms of what it did for our comfort level, yeah, that I think is the value. Yeah, I agree.
MEREDITH
[ 00:19:31 ] So we did move to a new apartment and and here in Portugal, yeah, I would just
Mark
[ 00:19:37 ] Say one other thing, no matter what you do where you go, whatever the price is, it's negotiable. It's kind of weird, just make sure I mean negotiate. They did a little bit but I think they probably could have pushed it harder, but because we were up against it, we just said, 'Hey, look, you know, just sign up, just get us that apartment because we're up against it.' Um, but I do think that if it's something that's been on the market a while and it's again rentals in the U. Are a little bit different to here, you can negotiate it here.
MEREDITH
[ 00:20:09 ] It's crazy, we don't know many; I mean maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't know.
Mark
[ 00:20:14 ] It's never been my experience that you negotiate a rent, yeah, but if you've got got somebody on your side, yeah, do it because what's the worst that's going to happen? They're going to say no.
MEREDITH
[ 00:20:24 ] So the lease here also are when you sign a seven, I mean, a year lease basically in the clause in the lease says you can exit this lease early as long as you fulfill like 20 wouldn't know the third two-thirds, I was thinking 20-30. Two-thirds of the lease, which ends up being seven months of the 12-month lease, so the good thing is is that we had the lease for August and so we could leave seven months from August, and so we were able to find another tenant, you know, or they were willing to work with us to find another tenant, and we were able to leave the lease yeah a month earlier, yeah, a month or two early, which was nice because that helped us financially on that.
Mark
[ 00:21:15 ] But, but again, you know, houses or the apartment was really, really nice inside; it was beautiful. Again, one of the things that really, really grated on me was the fact that if you ran the washing machine, the microwave, and the oven, oh, and then went and had a shower, it would blow a fuse and it would like trip everything out, but that's the problem; it's an old building, yeah, and we were the first ones to not have the wiring capacity, yeah, to deliver all of these quirks. New mod cons, what's the mod con, a modern convenience really? Why do you shorten everything because you see, you're so stupid, um, so yeah, that's that's what I would say. Is that sometimes these things they can look great and often they are, and I'm not trying to pick on you but I'm trying to pick on people that that don't do a good job but it looked a perfect job but it didn't end up being two or three times when you blow a fuse just because you want to run two two to four, can you tell that really bothered me? Really, really, really bothered me.
MEREDITH
[ 00:22:28 ] Anywho, okay so let's talk, let's recap the tips for people if they are moving or wanting
Mark
[ 00:22:35 ] to look for an apartment first of all this is something that we are willing to do for you so if you're coming to porto give us a call um because of our real estate background and because we live here and because we've gone through this this is just because obvious you know one can look at it and say well you should have known better and yeah we probably should and i think that if that demonstrates that a quote seasoned professional can sometimes screw it up and now now we really know yeah so i would say work with if you have to do it remotely work with someone like us someone else but also make sure that you're not just seeing the
MEREDITH
[ 00:23:17 ] Apartment, you're asking detailed questions about the street and the access and the lobby, and like, show me video of what it looks like to walk in the door, um things like that. Asking who's lived there before? Is this a brand new apartment? Um, are there going to be things that have not worked for tenants before, those kinds of things? Like I really wish we had, but again, I don't know if we're going to be able to make any changes to the building if we want to be able to do it in our own way if we want to, uh, we'll get it done maybe you know. We know better now, it's just how it is. But is there anything else you would add in terms of like tips, don't? Think the stairs are not a big deal, they're a big deal. Yeah, I would say anything above being on the second floor, yes, so we're not the ground level, not the first level, but maybe the second floor is probably doable for most people. Would have dealt with it, yeah, but no, for 63 steps, people! 63 steps up, that's all I gotta say.
Mark
[ 00:24:23 ] And when you're moving over with 12 suitcases that's that's a lot and they're 50 pounds each. He's still got PTSD, I'm sorry, I shudder now. Well, it's one of those things but learn from our mistakes don't underestimate the reality of it, don't think oh it'll be okay. I mean you may be the sort of person that it is okay. And that's something that's gonna be, like, I don't care and I'm gonna get on with it, yeah. But I'll tell you now when we moved over and it started to rain more or less within a week or so of us arriving and it rained for three months. And you're taking the dog out twice a day and you're going shopping once every two days, it's a lot. It really is a lot.
MEREDITH
[ 00:25:12 ] It really does become a lot. And I will also say this: so you're sitting here listening to us throw out numbers like 25,000 euros and I want to stress that that is high, yeah, it's really expensive for Porto; it's really expensive for Portugal, so don't be intimidated by our stupidity, seriously because
Mark
[ 00:25:40 ] You know where you can live here, exactly.
MEREDITH
[ 00:25:43 ] Our apartment is €900.
Mark
[ 00:25:48 ] I'm sorry, you know when you go to meetings and they or you go to the cinema and they say 'make sure your phone is on silent
MEREDITH
[ 00:25:56 ] '. Look, I'm not editing this out, I'm gonna let that just be real life. Our apartment is €900, less than the apartment that was farther from the river and on the street that we didn't really love. We did give up square footage or square meter inch, um, we have a smaller kitchen but like, other than that, we haven't really given up there's nothing noticeable. And I'll also say this, I still think 1595 is high.
Mark
[ 00:26:33 ] I think it's 1595 because it was a completely Refurbished building, yeah it's not just the apartment but the whole building was gutted down to the the brick wall, yeah behind this is the live wall from the cookie factory and if I were to shine the camera up a little bit you can see the original post holes where the the beams went from this wall to the other wall.
MEREDITH
[ 00:26:55 ] Um, but I just want to i want to say that to make sure that people are not hearing €2,500 and going 'Why the hell are people saying Portugal is affordable then?' Because that that might be the reason why you're not getting a mortgage in your home. 100. I need you to hear me when I say that there are much more affordable. Options and I keep having to put a little asterisk by that because affordability is relative, yeah, and what you want out of what your money gets you is up to you. There are plenty of places in this city that are absolutely you can enjoy living there for less than what we even pay here for this so I think I just I want to reiterate that because I don't want to come across as if I thought they said it was cheap to live here again, it could have been if we didn't make this mistake and I think we're we're correcting it. But I also think that as we move to different places which we probably will, yeah, we're going to be so much more...
Mark
[ 00:28:02 ] I'm just.
MEREDITH
[ 00:28:02 ] Going to be eager to pay even less and less and less because it's like almost like a graduated step down, like, can you find a place can i get a place that's cheaper than we were, yeah, but that's comfortable too, yeah, it's still comfortable too, it has the space and whatever you need. This is again like we talked about with like the whole two-bedroom thing, it's nice, but when people come to visit we've had that would be maybe one or two times a year probably and I think that if we were, you know, again, we don't believe that we're going to be in this apartment for much longer than maybe another three-ish, maybe yeah, this is our city.
Mark
[ 00:28:41 ] City life experience, and that's great, that's what we're going to enjoy it for. But if we had a second bedroom in the next one, I think what I would probably do is before renting it is have them agree to take the bed out and leave it blank and I'd create/ recreate that as a workspace for us, yeah we do need that because you can see we're sitting at our table, you know this is what it is. Hey, at least this apartment has a 90-room table, yeah we're we're roughing it, we're not roughing it but uh again it's it is all relative, it's relative to the space that you want in the area that you want and how much you're willing to spend and what You're willing to give up and trade, you know you can move just along the coastline from here to Foshan, it's maybe four miles away right to it's the hoity-toity, I mean it's really lovely, beautiful, beautiful areas.
MEREDITH
[ 00:29:40 ] And then you go out remote, like if you're away from the water or away from a city, it's really affordable, yeah, so it's just what you want out of your experience.
Mark
[ 00:29:50 ] We didn't want a car in the city and that's another reason why we chose Porto because we felt on our trips that we came came here to have for holidays and such um, we knew that we'd be able to get around with Uber and or shanks' pony or the metro, shanks' Pony, but you know, you, you played some. Haven't you played some?
MEREDITH
[ 00:30:15 ] And if you don't bring the company out, I can't even begin to explain your copy stuff to the people, so anyway...
Mark
[ 00:30:23 ] Well, maybe we'll have a Portuguese Cogni.
MEREDITH
[ 00:30:25 ] Oh god, as if Portuguese are enough, anyway... Thank you so much for listening and ANYWAY THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LISTENING AND YOU KNOW NOT JUDGING US FOR OUR DECISIONS BUT WE DO WANT TO walk the street but we do want to OR THE METRO, just because I want to share these things because it's important. I don't want the next person to make the same mistake, you know. And I'm also not... I'm not a fan of like dwelling on the past. We deal with it, you move on, you learn from it, and you know better next time, yeah. Um, but if you have questions, if you are interested in scouting in Porto, um, if you are interested in travel itineraries, we're doing all these things now, so check us out on Instagram because our uh bio, our link in our bio has a lot of this stuff listed already for you to get in touch with us, yeah. But also, we are always open for doing Q&A um podcasts, so and we just recently recorded one, and so we would love to have your questions, yeah. Continue some of those every month absolutely, and I think if there's an opportunity...
Mark
[ 00:31:34 ] I mean quite how you sort of do it from a tech way. I'm not sure, but if there was anyone that wanted to jump on a Zoom and we could have a Q&A for five minutes, eight minutes, ten minutes-whatever you've got, two or three questions and we just have a quick Zoom and then we can release that as part of the whole community thing. And I think it's not just a case of us wanting to talk at about us, yeah people about our experiences. We want that to be an involved process and I think that's where so bring it on!
MEREDITH
[ 00:32:05 ] Alright babe, alright cheers everybody, see you next time, take care. Listen up, future expats for more content about our move, the visa process, Portuguese culture and destinations, and tons of support. Resources for your own decisions and potential move abroad. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Portugal Junkies, stay in touch and help us reach more people by following us on Instagram and TikTok at Portugal Junkies, and we'll see you next time.
Mark
[ 00:32:35 ] Subscribing here and following us there.
MEREDITH
[ 00:32:37 ] Cheers, y'all!