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.
I have just read an article on spanishpropertyinsight talking about how Town halls have come up a with a controversial but apparently legal way to raise money; by forcing banks to develop land acquired in debt-for-property swaps and charging them for the privilege.
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.
At least according to an article on OPP. Leading up to May, Rightmove (leading British property portal) claims that of the 10 searches that have increased the most 50% were for Spanish property locations. Key interest was in Minorca up 9.06%, Marbella up 6.68%, Galicia up 5.96%, Northern Spain up 5.22%, and the Balearic Islands up +3.65%.
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Just found an article by Mark Stucklin reporting that it appears that the Spanish property market might have bottomed out. Although Andalucia still is down, as I reported recently, it is good to see that there has been a pick up in resale properties and the drop in due to lowering new build sales. Anyway, please find the article below.
In the short to medium term it appears that Spain’s property market is not set to rebound as many with a vested interest have been claiming. With high unemployment and lack of credit a general improvement in property transactions is still a way off. Even though the INE property statistics do appear to showing that the market has bottomed.
Owners of homes which are retrospectively judged to have fallen foul of regional planning rules can now be given just one month’s notice that council bulldozers are being sent in, as part of a crackdown on excessive development in one of Spain’s most popular regions.
I have just been reviewing the latest statistics by the Instituto Nacional Estatisticas (INE), and the signs of the market bottoming out continue. Total property transfers throughout Spain (mainland and islands) During the month of March, the number of property transfers was 168,532, that is, 0.5% less than for the same month in 2009, and 1.1% higher than the figure recorded in February 2010.
A surge of foreign lifestyle buyers and investors has split the Spanish property market.
Sales are up 200% in some regions compared with 2009 – despite the Bank of Spain claiming that last year was the worst in a decade for foreign property investment in Spain.
“Parts of Spain are doing really well at the moment but there are two completely different markets,” said James Dearsley, European sales manager at agent Atlas International. The company has reported a significant increase in sales since November 2009.
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The following information is supplied by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) for the fourth quarter of 2009.
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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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The housing market downturn continued during 2009. There was some evidence that the decline might be bottoming out towards the end of the year, though the housing market and the wider economy still face substantial problems. So, it is by no means certain that the end of the housing market downturn has actually been reached.
The adverse market conditions have been feeding into official price indices. There is uncertainty and debate about the extent of the price falls that have occurred, especially in new build. As a result, it is worth spending a little more time than usual in the other country chapters to go through the different indices.
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