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The Construction of a Skyscraper in Marbella, Malaga (Costa del Sol)

SpainHouses.netDecember 16, 2013Leave a comment

Since Marbella Town Hall approved modifications to local planning restrictions to allow the construction of skyscrapers in the municipality, so far only one project has been put forward. The plans envisage a 30-storey residential block reaching 115 metres above sea level on the Istán road. The high rise block would be designed by Catalán architect Ricardo Bofill, thanks to negotiations with the developers that are in their final stages.

While several investment groups from Spain and further afield have shown an interest, this is the only definite project that has reached the local planning offices.

The site for the block would be near the Istán road, just over a kilometre from the coast, and not far from the Olivia Valere night club, Les Roches hotel management school and Manolo Santana’s tennis club. The project is for a solely residential building with a maximum of four luxury flats per floor.
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Construction Industry Shows Signs of Recovery in Malaga Province

SpainHouses.netDecember 10, 2013Leave a comment

The construction industry is beginning to show signs of life again, thanks to the high-end property sector, which so far this year has experienced a growth which is even greater than that achieved in 2012.

According to figures from the DOM3 association, which encompasses 23 companies related to the construction of this type of property, 60 houses costing more than one million euros were built in 2011 in the triangle formed by Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís, with a global investment of 250 million euros, while 2012 ended with 75 houses built and 300 million euros invested. That was a 20 per cent increase in the number of properties, but this year, growth in this sector is even higher.

The president of the association, Sofía Polo, attributes this growth above all to flourishing foreign markets and greater confidence in the Spanish economy from those who are considering investing in this country. Another factor that permits this sector to perform better lies in the easy access to credit for this segment of the market and the fact that a high percentage of buyers do not need bank financing.
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Malaga, The Province with the Biggest Growth in Property Sales

SpainHouses.netDecember 2, 2013December 2, 2013Leave a comment

For the second time in just a few weeks, positive figures have been issued about the property market in Malaga. Earlier this month, figures from the National Institute of Statistics revealed that property sales in Malaga province had risen for the first time since the beginning of the crisis, and now figures from the Ministry of Public Works show that the number of property transactions increased more here than in any other province of Spain in the third quarter of this year, compared with the same period of 2012. There was an increase of 25.4 per cent, bringing the total number of sales to 5,059.

Those in the property sector are crossing their fingers and hoping that the trend continues. The Costa del Sol and the Levante region were the first to enter recession and may also be the first to come out of it, according to reports issued by the Ministry which show that after Malaga, Almeria, Barcelona and Murcia are the provinces in which the most properties were sold in July, August and September, compared with the same months last year.

Nevertheless, property developers point out that Malaga province offers a climate and infrastructure with which the Levante region cannot compete, even though it may be cheaper to buy a property there. “Nobody can beat us in terms of climate and services”, says Violeta Aragón, the general secretary of the Association of Builders and Developers (ACP).
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The ‘Golden Visa’ and its effects over the Spanish Property Market

SpainHouses.netNovember 25, 2013November 25, 2013Leave a comment

The 'Golden Visa' system now operating in Spain has prompted a 2,500 per cent increase in interest from Middle Eastern buyers in the year to date, compared with the same period in 2012.

Since October 1 2013, any non-EU national coming to Spain with more than €500,000 to invest has been automatically granted a residency permit, which has resulted in increased interest not only from the Middle East, but also from Asia and Russia.

The low property prices in Spain, which suffered from a glut of unsellable property during the credit crisis and high levels of repossessions, combined with the ability to secure EU residency has boosted tourism in recent months as potential buyers flock to the country to find their perfect property.

More than eight million people visited Spain in August alone, according to the Spanish tourism ministry, with Russians flocking in their thousands – between January and July this year, the number of Russian visitors rose by 30 per cent to 838,876.
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Price review makes buying Spanish property more taxing

SpainHouses.netNovember 18, 2013November 14, 2013Leave a comment

Approximately one million Britons live in Spain permanently or maintain holiday homes there.

The worst effects of the global recession have seen property prices plummet, representing a golden opportunity to pick up relative bargains. For those unable to sell, it provides a significant headache.

Fewer and cheaper sales not only spell bad news for owners and vendors - they have also caused concern on the part of Spain’s tax authorities, which have seen their take decrease due to the slowdown in the property market.

In order to reverse the situation, tax officials have taken more proactive steps, resulting in an increase in reviews of sale prices and the transfer taxes paid when properties are bought. It’s a step that can have consequences for buyers a number of years after ownership of the homes in question has changed hands.

This price review is a valid long-standing tax measure under Spanish property law. However, it is not necessarily apparent or brought to the attention of those eager to start life overseas.

When recession struck, the amount of transfer tax – called impuesto de transmisiones patrimoniales (ITP) – pouring into official coffers decreased significantly owing to the reduced number of sales and/or lower prices.

Under the terms of the Spanish law Ley del Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales y Actos Jurídicos Documentados, enacted in 1993, regional tax authorities have powers to examine all property purchases in order to ensure that the correct amount of ITP is paid by the buyer.
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Property Market: The Challenges Facing Spain’s Toxic Bank 1

SpainHouses.netNovember 11, 20131 Comment

Five years after Spain's property bubble burst, hundreds of thousands of new and unfinished properties remain unsold throughout the country. Meanwhile, some of the biggest companies in the world have had to eat humble pie, reduce their size, and in some cases have simply been swept away.

Slowly, and reluctantly, the property sector is facing up to one of the major reasons nobody is buying property: the huge numbers of homes that remain unsold, some of them unfinished. This is the case for the major financial institutions, as well as Sareb - the so-called "bad bank" set up to sell the vast portfolio of real estate accumulated by failed, and subsequently nationalized, banks after the property companies they had financed went belly up.

Estimates of the number of unsold houses range between the government's figure of 675,000 and the 815,000 calculated by savings bank CatalunyaCaixa. To this figure also needs to be added the close to half-a-million homes that are still under construction, according to both the government and the real estate sector. The areas with the largest number of unsold properties are, in order: Castellón, where one in four homes is empty according to CatalunyaCaixa; Toledo; Murcia; Almería; Tarragona; La Rioja; Alicante and Malaga.
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The Increase in Chinese Tourism

SpainHouses.netNovember 4, 2013Leave a comment

The World Tourism Organization says that last year, 83 million Chinese took their vacations abroad, an eight-fold increase on 2000. The Chinese overtook the Russians as the main consumers of tax-free goods in Europe, and in 2012, overtook the Germans on the amount they spend on travel. Last year they spent 78.4 billion euros, a 40-percent increase on 2011.

Spain has set itself the challenge of trying to attract more Chinese visitors, setting the target of one million by 2020. This year's January-July period saw 112,000 Chinese visit Spain, a 30-percent increase on 2012. In general, Spain, like the rest of Europe, is moving away from organized mass tourism: France comes 11th out of the top 25 destinations for Chinese vacationers. Spain is not on the list.

Rowdy or not, governments around the world are doing all they can to attract Chinese visitors, seeing them as a simple way to improve their ailing economies. But tempting the Chinese is no easy task, says Chanarong Mookjai of the Thai Association of Travel Agencies. "The absolutely essential thing is having enough people who can speak Chinese around so that visitors feel comfortable, and that also means that we have to adapt to their needs. ...continue reading "The Increase in Chinese Tourism"

Spanish bad bank reorders property sale as bids fall short: sources

SpainHouses.netOctober 28, 2013October 28, 2013Leave a comment

Spain’s bad bank failed to attract high enough bids in its first sale of commercial real estate and will cut the size of the portfolio being offered to make it easier to sell, Bloomberg quoted three people familiar with the matter as saying on Friday.

The bad bank, known as Sareb, received more than 30 offers for the portfolio that were lower than it expected, said one of the people, who declined to be named because the information isn’t public. It will reduce the number of buildings in the package known as Corona to four from seven, the person said. A spokeswoman for Madrid-based Sareb declined to comment.

Spain created Sareb last year to absorb 50 billion euros of real-estate assets from lenders including Bankia group that took aid as part of the nation’s European bailout. Its failure to attract high enough bids may undermine growing optimism in Spain as the stock market has surged 20 percent this year and foreign investors including Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates buy into Spanish companies.
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Spanish Home Sales Drop 15 Percent in August

SpainHouses.netOctober 21, 2013Leave a comment

Total home sales in Spain in August plunged 15.3 percent from a year earlier to 23,552 as rampant unemployment and downward pressure on wages more than offset the impact of ongoing falls in prices, according to figures released Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The fall was the biggest registered this year and the fourth of its kind in a row. The government announced in the summer of last year that tax relief on purchases of family homes would disappear at the start of this year, prompting households to buy in anticipation of the change. The administration also announced at the same time that the VAT rate on new homes would be raised from 4 percent to 10 percent.

The INE’s figures are based on transactions recorded by property registrars, meaning that the actual sales took place about two months prior to that.

Despite the sharp fall in August, sales for the first eight months of the year were up 1.2 percent from the same period a year earlier, in part spurred by growing interest by foreign purchasers. The number of transactions paid for without recourse to a mortgage accounted for 70 percent of the total.

According to figures released by the INE, house prices have fallen 37 percent from their peaks just before the bubble burst. The jobless rate at the end of June stood at 26.3 percent.
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La Zagaleta, in Benahavis (Málaga), plans to export its luxury formula to other countries

SpainHouses.netOctober 14, 2013October 14, 2013Leave a comment

La Zagaleta in Benahavís (Málaga), considered the most exclusive residential estate in Europe, plans to export its formula to other countries. The development firm that owns the private estate has recently appointed a new president, German Oswald Grübel, the former CEO of two of the most important Swiss banks, UBS and Crédit Suisse. He has taken over from La Zagaleta’s founder, Enrique Pérez Flores, who, at the age of 90, will become honorary president.

Grübel lives on the estate and was already a board member. This latest appointment completes the renovation process that began at the end of last year when Jacobo Cestino was named director general.

The new La Zagaleta project aims not only to establish the estate’s position as the most exclusive place to live on the continent, but also to branch out internationally.
The possibility of investing in projects in Greece, Turkey and Germany is being studied said sources from the firm, who stressed that their financial situation, with profits and no debts, puts them in an optimum position to grow.
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