I will do some research when I have some more time later today, as I would like to see how it would benefit me as a foreign to buy a home there using bitcoin. The home prices in Portugal are much more affordable than the home prices in New York.
I think all the benefits that you might get using Bitcoin to buy a property in Portugal being a foreigner is the difference in the prices of properties in your country and Portugal as you said. Properties in New York would obviously be much more expensive considering it is one of the busiest and in-demand cities of the world today.
You will still be paying taxes and everything even if you make the transaction using Bitcoins as described by OP in an earlier post. So your benefit will be that you will be saving a good chunk of money on the property based on its price.
Yes, but still no. The good chunk of money you'll be saving doesn't come from the price of the property being lower in Portugal (compared to NYC I agree, but compared to most countries in the world, Portugal is more expensive, it's not an underdeveloped country), but
because the gains are not a taxable event there.
If you bought 10 BTC at 50 EUR each, hodled, and now you buy a house with these 10 BTC, you only have to pay the regular taxes anyone must pay (VAT, licenses, property registration fees...) but not for the gains anymore, whether you live there or not. This doesn't happen in most countries, where you should pay not only for the purchase of the house, but for the gains also:
10 BTC * 50€ = 500€ price @ you bought.
10 BTC* 27.000€ = 270.000€ price @ you sell.
270.000€ - 500€ = 265.500€ your capital gains.
265.500* 25%
1 =
66.375€ in taxes you should pay otherwise, but not in Portugal.
1(25% is just an example and varies between countries)