In recent article in the Daily Mail sheds some light on the amount of retired individuals from the UK looking at moving back to the UK in this more difficult climate that we are finding ourselves in. Based on the same population it appears that even with bad exchange rates and a quiet Spanish property market, more Britons are still happy to stay in their adopted country.
I have just been reading a positive article in the telegraph.co.uk that claims that the amount of enquiries for Spain are up quite drastically from last year. A good sign! I should just point out though that ‘interest’ does not equate to sales and has the figures are given in percentages, they do not give a clear indication of how many individuals are actually looking at buying in Spain. From my point of view the demand for Costa del Sol property from the British market has picked up slightly, but remains weak due to exchange rates and other financial considerations.
Asking prices are still between 10% and 20% too high, reveals a new survey of house-hunters carried out in March by the Foundation of Savings Banks (FUNCAS).
84% of Spaniards think that vendors are still asking too much, and more than half think prices will fall around 10.5% this year.
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The G-14 (group of largest developers in Spain), claim that there will be a shortage of properties in Spain in the next 2 to 3 years in certain areas if the level of granted licences continues to drop. Pedro Perez (General Secretary of the group) claims that due to the lack of building permits having been handed out, prices on newly built properties in urban centres have already been adjusted via supply and demand.
In an interesting move, the Spanish government has stated that there will be further investments in Spain’s road and railway infrastructure. The article was posted on the Business Week website(link below). I think this is worth mentioning on a property related blog, as better communicated regions should lead in time to a positive increase in property prices and a general betterment of the Spanish economy.
They became a symbol of the global housing market crash, unsold, half-built, lining the Mediterranean like skeletal relics of a bygone, more prosperous age.
But villas and apartments on the Spanish Costas are suddenly hot property again as Britain’s second-home buyers rediscover the attractions of life in southern Spain.
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The bust is dead, the Spanish property market’s recovery has begun! That’s how some leading daily papers like El Pais are interpreting the latest figures from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) showing the market grew ever so slightly in January. Well, I wouldn’t try to claim a vigorous recovery is underway, but there’s no denying the market appears to have found a floor, which is an improvement on the 2 years plus of monthly declines we had before.
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I have just read an interesting article by ELS (legal firm based in Fuengirola) discussing how the changes in Spain’s capital gains tax law might allow EU vendors to reclaim part of the 35% they (unjustly) paid to the Spanish government. I wrote about this tax rebate, earlier in the year, but ELS have written a far more detailed and explanatory explanation.
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I recently read an interesting interview with Mikel Echavarren, head of Irea, a Spanish real estate consultancy, talking about the state of the real estate sector in Spain. As an experienced professional in touch with many different companies in the sector it is worth listening to what he has to say. Here is a selection of comments from his Q&A with Idealista News, the news section of the property portal Idealista
We publish this piece knowing full well how incredibly stupid one looks when his off-centre analysis proves erroneous, and how unscathed totally faulty predictions come out of the fracas as long as they are accompanied by many others of their ilk. We don’t care.
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