> This will make the problem worse as the Portuguese will complain that the foreigners own the beautiful modern buildings.
I don't agree. We already have expensive housing in every country that those who aren't wealthy might covet. Also, new construction can be done in a way where you set aside, say, 20% of the units for locals in the same way that cities like NYC try to (but, you know, better).
> Additionally it‘s important to keep in mind that this is not feasible for EU countries with the four freedoms.
That's not strictly true [1] eg Malta.
Where it isn't possible, restricting non-EU citizens would still have a positive impact.
Also, where you can't actually restrict people, you can effectively do it with taxation, like having high property taxes for non-residents. This would be perfectly legal. US states do this too (eg a non-Indiana resident pays higher property taxes than an Indiana resident).
You can also discourage rampant property speculation with high transfer taxes, again targeted at foreign buyers.
> It would be like Florida banning ownership of existing houses for Californians.
I'm a big fan of doing this in Hawaii.
> ... would totally kill the Portuguese tourism industry
Build hotels. Build dedicated short-stay accomodation. Allow hoome owners to have ADUs. Build infrastructure for tourism. Don't use theoretical hits on tourism to make locals homeless.
[1]: https://realting.com/news/where-it-is-banned-or-hard-for-for...