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by manuelabeledo 1119 days ago
> There are problems with tensions between locals and digital nomads in several places, especially Portugal

I have never heard of this before, and I have a few portuguese friends.

Also, in the context of Lisbon, I doubt that 16,000 salaried workers [0] could influence the market to that extent in a city of 500,000 people, especially given that digital nomads make, on average, $120,000 [1].

It seems to me that digital nomads are the new scapegoats for people who don't like to point their finger inwards.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20221227111848/https://nomadlist...

[1] https://www.twoticketsanywhere.com/digital-nomad-statistics/

4 comments

> Also, in the context of Lisbon, I doubt that 16,000 salaried workers [0] could influence the market to that extent in a city of 500,000 people, especially given that digital nomads make, on average, $120,000 [1].

16000 out of 500000 people will definitely move the needle quite a bit in housing, given the small % of people who move every year

Depends how many houses there are, if they had 'just enough' then adding any amount of people can cause a large price spike as everyone tries to outbid each other for remaining inventory. The price increases can become sticky as people start joining the market to speculate
> especially given that digital nomads make, on average, $120,000

Minimum wage in Portugal is about €760/month, or $10,000/year. You're seriously underestimating how much $120k is.

I think you are overestimating the impact of 16,000 people in a city like Lisbon.

The median salary of a digital nomad is sure lower than $120,000. I don’t have numbers, but I would say it should be closer to $60,000. Average salary in Lisbon is also roughly $48,000.

If locals want to blame someone, perhaps investment banks eating up the available housing stock would be a better target.

16,000 digital nomads that need individual housing, in a culture where multiple generations of families live together.
This is nonsense, and definitely not a thing in Portugal.
It's famous that the Portuguese and Spanish live with their parents until 30s (increasingly 40s) and usually close to their grand parents.
Because the housing market has been effectively closed to many young people for a couple decades now.

Was the 2008 crisis also caused by digital nomads?

Isn't that just housing market going to shit ?