Bensafrim Again, on a Budget

275,000€ - 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 3 separate units (one 2-bedroom, two 1-bedrooms), 244 m² built/12,360 m² total.

What a completely incongruous piece of property this is. Small building on large-ish chunk of land at 3 acres, and yet that building houses three independent apartments. The interior has been recently renovated with a generic but acceptable finish, while the exterior looks something from a film set, a plunk-in-place piece of scenery for a Western taking place in Mexico. I would love to see a whole lot more photos of the land, because what little we see has not been utilized at all. Finding it on Google Maps would be useful, too. No terraces, no shade, no landscaping, nothing beyond a lawn and scrubby hills. Weird. And weirdly cheap given the size of the plot, the good shape it's in, and its relatively good location. Very much a big, blank canvas.

Photos lifted from this listing on idealista. Represented by B&P Real Estate Agency (listing). The following info is from the idealista listing:

"Situated just outside of Bensafrim, this villa is set in two floors, in a plot of 12360 m2.

The villa was built in 1997 and has been refurbished recently containing the main accommodation with 94 m2 and a large garage that has been converted into 2 self contained 1 bedroom apartments. The three accommodations are linked from indoors but with separate entrance doors. The ground floor contains the two apartments comprising each a living and dining area with kitchenette, one bedroom and one bathroom. On the top floor there is a 2 bedroom apartment with a sitting room that opens to a dining area with an open plan kitchen, two bedrooms, a family bathroom, a balcony around the house and a wide roof terrace. This property is ideal for a calm and relaxed life on the country side, 10 minutes away from Lagos and the beaches."

"244 m² built

T4

3 bathrooms

Land plot of 12,360 m²

Terrace

Balcony

Built in 1997

Energy efficiency rating: D (ECI not indicated)

Air conditioning"

Location

This property is in almost the exact same neighbourhood as the previous post, Bensafrim Villa - Very Comfy Indeed. Therefore, I can just copy'n'paste this location information:

According to Google Maps:

- Less than 10 minutes by car to Bensafrim: Either a large village or a small town. At least one market, a post office, a pharmacy, some eating options.

- Less than 15 minutes to Odiáxere: Larger than Bensafrim, with more options. Campo de Futebol do Clube Desportivo de Odiáxere, for your football. Transit, too.

- Less than 15 minutes to Meia Praia .

- Less than 15 minutes to Lagos, with all that Lagos has to offer.

- Close to the A22.

- Half an hour to the Barragem da Bravura, a dam that forms a reservoir with some good hiking. (Regarding the previous link, this looks like a good site: Walk Algarve - I think this site will be getting it's own blog entry).

- Less than half an hour to Portimão, the second biggest city in the Algarve.

- 40 minutes to Sagres.

Features

Let's look at what it doesn't have or what we don't know if it has first. No pool. No ground-level terraces (beyond an asphalt slab, looks like). No shade. No built-in outdoor facilities at all, other than the terrace(s) on the second floor. No landscaping. Probably no bore hole. Probably no internet - the satellite dish may indicate this, but it not being mentioned seems telling. None of the bathrooms are large, only one tub, probably no bidets. Probably no irrigation. Mmm... what else? Ah, probably no work/storage room(s).

But a nice sized piece of land, a house in good shape, 3 apartments, a lot of potential, pretty good location, and a very low price. 1.127 €/m² - that is quite low. If I had the money to buy as well as the money to do some fairly hefty exterior work, I would take this one very seriously. First thing would be to find out whether or not the land is zoned for additional development. There will be an article about land-zoning in Portugal coming here soon.

Oh yeah, and I have ditched the rating system. Decide for yourself - you now have just as much information as I do.

Ha! I was just wrapping this up, looking for a good Creative Commons photo of Bensafrim to close this out, when I ran across a pic of this place during an image search. That took me to this listing with ArKadia. Some better photos of the land there, but also some contradictory information.

Hm. Just looked up the ArKadia Home Page and About section - some very interesting reading there. Seems they are doing something not too different from what I'm doing. Kind of. Hm.