About
The short answer
Madeira Atlantic Property is written by Nuno M. Tavares, who lives in Funchal, owns and runs an Alojamento Local in São Gonçalo, and is buying a family home on the island. Every number on this site carries a source and a date.
Who writes this
Nuno M. Tavares. He lives in Funchal, in the parish of São Gonçalo. He owns a house there and runs it as an Alojamento Local, managing it himself rather than through an agency. He owns land in São Vicente. He is in the middle of buying a family home in greater Funchal — which means the buying process described on this site is not researched, it is being lived.
He is not the Portuguese footballer of the same name.
Who shows you the houses
David Leça. He is Madeiran, he lives on the island, and he is the independent consultant at IAD Portugal, SA who holds every property on this site under licence AMI 11220. Nuno writes the site; David does the part the site is not allowed to do.
That division is not a courtesy, it is the law. Real estate mediation in Portugal — listing a property, marketing it, negotiating, handling the sale — is licensed and regulated by IMPIC, and this site holds no licence. So the viewing is his, the negotiation is his, the contract is his. The licence is IAD Portugal’s rather than personally his, which is how mediation is licensed here, and we would rather write that sentence than let you assume otherwise.
He also works in partnership with agencies across the region, which is the practical reason he is the one named here: an enquiry to him reaches more of the island than his own listings do. Commission is the owner’s and is already inside the asking price, so none of that costs a buyer anything.
Between the two of them the island is covered from both ends — someone who has lived the buying process and pays the bills, and someone licensed to actually transact. The properties, and how to reach him.
Why this site exists
Because this is written from inside the region rather than about it. The electricity bill is ours, the Alojamento Local registration is ours, and the purchase is happening now. And the region is not the mainland: Madeira registers short-term rentals with its own regional tourism directorate, sets its own property transfer tax brackets, and runs its own health service. Copy a mainland rule onto this island and you have the wrong answer.
The gap is not opinion. It is arithmetic. Nobody publishes what a purchase actually costs on the day you sign, or what a month of groceries in Funchal actually comes to. We have those numbers because they are ours.
The rules we write by
- Every number has a source and a date. If we cannot link where it came from and say when we last checked it, it does not go on the page.
- Portuguese primary sources, not English blogs. Most of what governs this exists only in Portuguese, in the national gazette and the regional one. That is where we read it.
- We never invent a crowd. No “most of our buyers say”. If we have not counted it, we do not claim it.
- We publish the downsides. The damp, the winter rain on the north side, the driving, the hills, the specialist medicine you have to fly for. Writing that is paid on the introduction has an obvious reason to leave the downside out. Nobody pays us for an introduction, so there is nothing here that a downside costs us.
- We are not advisers. Not lawyers, not accountants, not tax advisers, not licensed estate agents. We describe rules and link the rule. What you do about it is between you and someone qualified.