The auction will be taking place in the town of Vilamoura, when the New York Stock Exchange will be listing that a real estate investment firm will be conducting an auction of 42 luxury resort homes

The President of the KW Auction Group – the group that will be staging the auction – said that he was quite confident that all the homes will be sold off because he felt the current market conditions will not play a major role in the projected success of the auction process.

The auction will be taking place on the 22^nd of June in Vilamoura, and based on past auctions, it is projected to be a success, or at least this is what the President of the real estate investment firm is saying. He did continue on to say that real estate auctions are not uncommon in developed countries regardless of the overall market conditions.

These luxury Algarve homes will have no starting bids, so the auction is meant to provide a great opportunity for year-round and resort homebuyers as well as investors to get some great properties at excellent prices. The home types that are to be auctioned off include one, two and three bedroom apartments.

It appears that five of the homes will be sold to the Highest Bidder with all the bids being subject to the acceptance of the Seller. The residences are located in four separate home collections: Monte Laguna, L’Orangerie, The Victoria Gardens and Sunset Villas, all of them featuring green areas alongside community pools.

The apartments range in size from 99 to 190 square meters.

A recent survey amongst local property agents has revealed that buying and selling of property during 2012 has shown some improvement when compared to the past couple of years. In fact, about seventy percent of the leading Algarve property agents who took part in the survey are of this opinion.

The 10-10-10 Survey – as it is called – contains ten key conclusion, and was a joint project between ILM Group and Property Lynx. The survey is carried out three times per year and its goal is to measure market confidence, performance and market trends – the next one for instance will be completed in May 2013 with its results becoming available in June.

The majority of participants reported the enquiries, offers and transactions and offered evidence of enquiries leading to complete purchases. For instance, 26 percent of enquiries for villas and luxury villas converted into 27% of sales, not a bad conversion percentage indeed.

Interestingly enough, the market is dominated by the top end and middle range, meaning that 27% of transactions were at more than one million euros – which is a 175 increase compared to 2011 – while transactions in the 100,000 to 500,000 euro bracket accounted for 51% of the market.

The survey also revealed that the overall market demand has been hindered by several motives such as pricing factors, lack of finance opportunities and unreliable banks, as well as general concerns in regards to the Euro’s stability.

Another major problem that the Algarve agents reported was the lack of support from the government and the regional and local authorities, as well as with the overall promotion of the region. They said that they cannot compete with other destinations when the focus of the region’s tourism industry stays on golf and the beach.

On the other hand, the survey does conclude that the regional agents, operator and developers are overall optimistic about 2013’s prospects, optimism that is propped up by the Portuguese government’s commitment to market the ‘Living in Portugal’ initiative.

We tout the idea of visiting the Algarve during the winter a lot on this website because of the reduced prices, considerably smaller crowds and milder temperatures however we’ve also talked about how the tough economic times are battering the area, and today is going to be one of the latter types of articles.

Almost half of the Algarve hotels associated with the AHP have decided to suspend their activities during the low season, for at least three months – 48% to be exact.

AHP representatives have admitted that this move is going to be bad for the region as a whole and that there is definitely a seasonality trend taking place in the Algarve, which a few years back wasn’t that prevalent. On the other hand it is a clear sign that there just aren’t enough customers for all of these hotels to continue operating through the winter season.

This seasonality phenomenon is having some effects in other regions of the country as well, not only the tourist-heavy Algarve. For instance in the Alentejo region – which is just North of the Algarve – fourteen percent of their hotels shut down during the winter, while none of them did so in 2011.

This issue isn’t the only one hitting the hotel industry in the region, with a sharp drop in prices being yet another critical matter to consider.

Between January and September of 2012, the average price of a hotel room was of 40.48 Euros, while the occupancy level overall averaged at 59.39 percent.

The capital, Lisbon, stood out by far with the biggest of price drops with the average room price dropping in September by 15.77 percent.

These savings are there only for those who like to self-cater, and considering the tough economic times, more and more people are considering it as more than just a viable option, considering the difference in costs that it implies.

The Algarve is amongst the top spots for cheapest self-catering holiday destinations in Europe, so let’s take a closer look and see what that actually means.

The study looked at the cost of twenty supermarket-bought essential items that a family of four would most likely need to purchase while on their holiday. In the Algarve that shopping basket came to 57.78 British pounds, with just 0.09 pounds more than the absolute cheapest destination, Mallorca.

These same items would cost you considerably more in other European destinations, and we’ll continue with the Cyprus example, in Limassol it would cost you 104.29 British pounds.

The survey also looked into the price of cheese and found that the cheese in Portugal was less than half price that of Cyrpus and pizza in Italy will cost you twice as much as it would in the Algarve.

One would consider that self-catering will considerably reduce the costs of their holiday by default, and that is true, however as we’ve showed earlier, those same costs can also be drastically reduced depending on where exactly you are going. Apparently Mallorca and Portugal offer the best value options for self-catering tourists, while Greece is considerably more expensive.

This characteristic of the Algarve extends to dining out as well, even in that category it is amongst the cheapest places to dine out while on holiday.

So you should keep this in mind when you’re considering your next trip, and also consider that you can visit as much of the Algarve as you wish with some Algarve car hire services.

A spokesperson for the Algarve University said that they are expecting around 300 international students to come follow their courses, while less local students will be going abroad. This is largely due to the economic crisis, which is making universities abroad much harder to attend financially, so some foreign students find the Algarve University as a more affordable alternative, and on the local front, it means that going to study abroad for Portuguese students is that much harder.

There are a couple of numbers to back this up, according to a coordinator for International Relations and Mobility, fifteen out of the two hundred local students that were intending on studying abroad, have changed their minds mainly because of the bad economic times.

The coordinator laments however the decreased ability of Portuguese students to study abroad, since becoming internationalized prepares a student for the real world. The problem stems from the fact that the scholarships are relatively low and there has to be some self-financing and this limits people quite a bit.

Now shifting our attention to the approximate three hundred international students that are expected to show up for their first courses this month, half of them come from within the European Union while the other half come mainly from Brazil, but Russia, Bosnia, Canada and Qatar show up as well.

When you add them all up, more than fifty different foreign nationalities will be studying at the University of Algarve this year, however it should be noted that this isn’t the largest that the institution has hosted.

Last year the University hosted about four hundred and fifty international students, and that number is expected to either be matched or surpassed this year.

For those considering a trip to the region to visit the university, you should consider our Algarve car hire services as a means of getting around the place in a quick manner.

It turns out however, that the Algarve peak season tourism numbers have met the expectations of the local Algarve Hotels and Resorts Association, in fact they were slightly larger than the numbers in the same period of 2011.

The occupancy rate for August reached 90.7%, despite the many economic issues that have been hitting the region over the past year, including increased IVA rates, the rather controversial introduction of tolls on the A22 – which created a number of difficulties for those travelers who didn’t have a Portuguese plated car – the overcrowded EN125 as well as the overall Euro crisis.

As said earlier, despite all of these economic woes, attendance actually saw a substantial increase during August, seeing a 17.3% increase in Dutch tourists, 16.1% British, 15.7% German and 4.6% Irish. It should be noted that these increases came at a great time in order to counterbalance the rather significant decrease in the number of Spanish visitors – 29.1% actually – and the domestic Portuguese market decreased as well, by 6.3%. The domestic and Spanish decrease doesn’t come as a surprise though, as this was a natural consequence of the economic issues that both countries are facing, especially the austerity measures in Portugal.

We have to mention that the slight increase in occupancy rate that we’re referring to is of only 0.1%, but considering all the things that should’ve stopped them for even reaching last year’s rate, it shouldn’t be neglected. It is believed that the occupancy rate was helped by all-inclusive holiday packages and accommodation, which come with reduced prices overall. Interestingly enough, the year on year revenue of the region to increase by 4.3%.

Of course some regions saw an increase in occupancy while others saw decreases, in the first category you’ll find Lagos, Sagres, Vilamoura, Quarteira and Quinta do Lago, and in the second Carvoeiro, Armacao de Pera, Monte Gordo and Villa Real de Santo Antonio.