All things short term, medium term, and long term accomodation in the beautiful city of Lisbon
TL;DR
Lisbon is full of many wonderful, colourful neighbourhoods to suit all tastes, and there’s a whole heap of ways to find your accomodation depending on your budget and length of stay. If you’re interested in the intracacies then read on for the juicy neighbourhood details, otherwise here’s a list of relevant accomodation sites:
- Airbnb
Has the most listings, trustworthy with heaps of reviews, flexible for last minute on-the-spot bookings, more expensive. - Nestpick
A database pulling in different listings from different sources, which means a whole lot to wade through. You can get diamonds.. but you can also get rubbish. - Idealista
The local Portuguese offering, more geared towards longer stays, lots of listings but not always in all the best areas, especially if you’re looking for super central. - Facebook accomodation groups
As with any Facebook group, you’ll find some winners and some.. non-winners. Lots of listings coming up each week, especially for those only wishing to rent a room in a share house. Think longer term, but also keep an eye our for short-term bargains when people head out of town for a few weeks and just want to cover their rent. - Sabatical homes
Primarily designed for academics and medium stays. Not a huge number of listings and can be a little expensive, but there might be 1-2 gems going. - Nomad X
Recently had a pretty cool revamp, serves as the Airbnb type deal for digital nomads. Still a little pricey and mainly aimed at those looking to rent a room in a share house. Not so much couples or groups! - Spot A Home
Aimed at mid-to-long-termers, pretty limited listings. Is considered trustworthy and has the added benefits of video tours and great customer service. Real talk on the listings helps you avoid being sold the dream only to arrive in a nightmare. - Uniplaces
Designed for students means the price is right but sometimes the quality and location is a little questionable
Accomodation in Lisbon
Whether you’re still months away from landing in Portugal, you’ve just arrived or you’ve been here a while now, accomodation is one of the more tricky things to get right in Lisboa.
Whilst the cost of living in Portugal is comparatively quite low to Australian cities, this doesn’t translate to the rental prices. Combine that with little to no knowledge of the areas you might be staying in and things can start to get a little difficult!
Portugal’s digital maturity is about 10 years behind Australia when it comes to easy to navigate and trustworthy looking rental/Airbnb sites so below we’ve listed and gone into detail about all of your options when choosing a home for your stay.
Short term accomodation in Lisbon (1 day – 2 weeks)
For short term stays we recommend staying as close to the centre of Lisbon as possible. Lisbon isn’t the biggest city so the closer to the centre, the more you will be able to see and do just by walking around.
Reccomended short term areas to stay:
Pena, Rossio, Martim Moniz, Bairo Alto, Chiado, Alfama
These areas are the cheaper options of those where you can still easily access bars, restraurants, tourist attractions and pubic transport.
Recommended short term accomodation websites:
The obvious one, Airbnb has the best selection of accomodation in the best locations and is the most trust worthy provider out there.
The only issue with Airbnb is the price point (compared to other options) which continues to go up, especially over the summer months.
Worth a look to see if you can snag a gem as there definitely still are a few out there.
Whilst not quite the quality of properties that’s on offer at Airbnb, you’ll have the opportunity to stay at a completely different type of accomodation with Nestpick and usually for little cheaper too.
Absolutely worth a look if you’re happy to put in a little more effort to get a little more out.
Medium term accomodation in Lisbon (2 weeks – 4 months)
Medium term stays give you a little bit more flexibility and probably mean you’ll have different priorities rather than just being around the city buzz.
This also enables you to look for cheaper accomdation since the cheaper options usually require a commitement of more than 2 weeks.
Recommended medium term areas to stay:
Graça, Cais Do Sodre, Alfama, Saldanha, Estrela, Santos, Alcântara,
Príncipe Real, Chiado
Recomended medium term accomodation sites:
Accomodation in Lisbon Digital Nomads (Facebook group)
Requires more digging than the other purpose built websites, but often there are some great, cheap options in this Facebook group. You’ll need to be quick as everytime someone posts an available property they’re snapped up quickly.
*Requires a commitment of 1 month*
Pretty handy website with a ton of listings, and lots of different living options (coliving, whole apartment etc.) The pricing can vary a lot but the website has recently had a revamp meaning it’s now easier to find places which fit your criteria.
Sabatical homes have some good options, albeit not a huge amount of listings. They vary in terms of the length of stay you need to commit ranging from 2 weeks to 12 months.
The site itself is a little concerning to the user as it’s a little outdated and often the people managing the properties don’t reply. There’s also very few reviews left on properties meaning it’s hard to tell if the listings are legitimate.
Having said that, if you do manage to get a good place it can be of much higher quality for a much cheaper rate, so still worth a look. The properties tend to be located around Universities, which are usually great areas to live.
Long term accomodation in Lisbon (4 months +)
Long term stays open up a raft of new options in terms of where you can seek your accomodation options from. Most of the medium term accomodation options are also applicable to Long term stays but the longer you are willing to commit the cheaper, and more options become available to you.
Recommended long term areas to stay:
Campo de Orique, Graça, Penha de França, Santos, LX Factory, Saldanha, Alcântara, Lapa, Estrela, Alameda, Intendente, Anjos
Recomended long term accomodation sites:
Idealista is the equivalent of Realestate.com or Domain in Australia. That means it’s more trustworthy however it also means you will require a more formal arrangement than some of the other options available. Things like an NIF number and a Portuguese bank account are generally needed and the lease usually lasts 24 months.
Aimed at mid-to-long-termers, pretty limited listings. Is considered mostly trustworthy and has the added benefits of video tours and great customer service. Real talk on the listings helps you avoid being sold the dream only to arrive in a nightmare.
Designed for students means the price is right but sometimes the quality and location is a little questionable.
Australians in Portugal 