Now try that on a 1 000€ salary, or 2 000€ assuming married and both working at a good enough place (minimum wage in Portugal is 870€ brutto), while having a family, paying credit on the car (as public transport sucks), various kinds of insurances, supermarket, electricity, water,...
Even me with my seniority most likely won't pull more than 1 500€ netto at most places.
Yep, that's a big part of why people aren't doing it. I guess with 2000€ income you can get a loan for 100K€ (certainly the case here), but it doesn't solve the problem of there being almost no work within a ~1hr drive in any direction.
Refurbishing them to a modern standard, of course, is quite a different story. Perhaps €100K EUR in a lot of cases.