According to Marta, our real estate agent, most of the time when Portuguese are looking for a home, they look at three or four properties before deciding to buy.

We increased her average by a substantial amount.

However, it proved to be a worthwhile endeavor because the wide net we cast resulted in reeling in a home we absolutely fell in love with. It’s about fifteen minutes from downtown Sesimbra, fifteen minutes from some beautiful beaches, including Praia da Foz, which may actually be where the Fonz “jumped the shark” in his leather jacket, I dunno.

It’s also twenty minutes from the Cabo Espichel Lighthouse, which we showed pictures of in a previous post, 45 minutes from the airport, and a little under 14 hours as the crow flies from Portland. It’s in the “country,” but we have neighbors (although not very many), and all the services we need are within a fifteen minute drive. We won’t be able to take possession for a couple of months, but we’re excited!

The house and property actually reminds me a little bit of our home in Wilsonville, albeit smaller and half the cost. It has three bedrooms downstairs, his and hers bathrooms (they are outside of the master bedroom, which doesn’t bother us in the least), and a house-long upstairs that’ll serve as the man-attic, plus room to hide a few refugees.

Next on the agenda: we have to find an apartment to use as a rental somewhere in Lisbon. Now that we have our main home in our pocket, we know exactly what we have to spend for the second place, and of course our realtor Marta is getting to know what we like very well!