I bought a large house for peanuts this year in PT, just not in Lisbon. Really about the cheapest m2 with land I could get in Europe. Not everyone wants or needs to live in a city.
People are hardworking and friendly, there is a lot of entrepreneurial spirit among the young, even though they are not in lisboa.
The house we got is so cheap I didn’t even know you could get actual liveable places for that in the the west of the eu still.
It’s close enough to lisboa and Porto to just have a weekend there regularly.