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Category: Real Estate

Published on Leave a comment on Zara founder Amancio Ortega earned €93.3 million last year in real estate profits

The vast fortune in the hands of Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex – the parent company of clothing chain Zara – keeps growing.

Picasso Tower 200x300 - Zara founder Amancio Ortega earned €93.3 million last year in real estate profits
Picasso Tower

But the profits are not just coming in from his retail fashion outlets, which also include brands such as Bershka, Massimo Dutti and Oysho.

Ortega’s real estate activities are becoming more profitable every year. Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, the company that he uses to invest in office and retail space, posted net profits of €93.3 million last year, a 32% increase from the previous year, according to the company’s filings with the Spanish Business Register.

The Galician tycoon’s property company specializes in scooping up buildings on the best streets of the world’s major cities. Most of these buildings already have occupants, and Ortega becomes their new landlord. The building housing the Apple Store in Barcelona and the Picasso Tower in Madrid are among the properties in his portfolio.

In 2013, Pontegadea collected €98.5 million in rent, €4.3 million more than in 2012. Of this amount, €75.7 million came from Spanish investments and €22.7 million from foreign tenants.
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Published on 2 Comments on Spain: First Retirement Destination Among Britons

Scores of British expats who were drawn to Spain in the Nineties and early 2000s struggled to cope during the financial crisis and returned to Britain. Nearly 90,000 Britons packed their bags and abandoned the country last year alone.

House in Ibiza 300x199 - Spain: First Retirement Destination Among BritonsSpain’s popularity as a retirement destination also suffered, with a poll last summer revealing the top destinations were the United States, Australia and Canada.

The results of a new study, however, suggest that Spain has regained its appeal among Britons planning to retire overseas.

Of more than 2,000 Britons polled by MGM Advantage, a retirement income specialist, 13pc said they planned to retire in Spain.

France took second place with 9pc of votes, followed by the United States and Australia.

After a six year property slump in Spain, during which prices are thought to have fallen between 40pc and 50pc nationally, recent data suggests the housing market is now recovering.
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Published on Leave a comment on Total luxury: La Zagaleta, in Benahavís, Málaga

On the golden mile that extends along the coastline between Estepona and Marbella there is still room for a 24 carat urban diamond. A place in which the terms ‘luxury’ and ‘exclusive’ do not go far enough, because of the great fortunes that are needed to reside there. In the 900 hectares of La Zagaleta residential development, in the municipality of Benahavís, not just any fortune is acceptable.

Villa in Benahavis2 300x211 - Total luxury: La Zagaleta, in Benahavís, MálagaThe 230 property owners have the right to veto prospective neighbours who might put at risk the anonymity of this happy Arcadia, which sits in the foothills of the Serranía de Ronda and has views of Gibraltar.

Even the simplest home costs ten million euros here and the most expensive costs three times as much. When somebody presents their credentials as a purchaser, the other owners do not ask how many times he or she has featured on the front pages of newspapers - they ask for a guarantee that they are worth ten times the price of the house they are going to buy.

With a philosophy like that, this residential development has become a place of refuge for the truly powerful who hold the reins of a substantial part of the world economy and who appreciate the worth of real privacy. People such as Oswald J. Grübel, for instance, who has exchanged handling the fortunes of UBS and Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s biggest financial institutions, for a much quieter golden retirement as CEO at La Zagaleta.
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Published on 1 Comment on Right to Adequate Housing in Spain

From Human Rights Watch. The Spanish government has failed to take adequate measures to avoid and alleviate the impact of the housing and debt crisis amid economic down-turn Flat for sale in Santander 300x225 - Right to Adequate Housing in Spainin Spain. Since the economic crisis began in 2007, banks have foreclosed on over 500,000 properties under a procedure that leaves individuals and families saddled with significant debt and no realistic pathway towards discharging their debt. Immigrants, women heads of household, women victims of economic abuse, and children are among the vulnerable groups affected by the crisis.

Spain’s social crisis around evictions and debt arise in a context of decades of government policies aggressively promoting home ownership and borrowing and inadequate efforts to ensure an appropriate and affordable stock of rental housing and sufficient investment in public housing. Irresponsible lending, unfair terms in mortgage contracts (such as exorbitant default interest rates), unscrupulous behavior by intermediaries such as real estate agencies, and the lack of oversight during the boom economic years contributed to the current situation.
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Published on Leave a comment on Rise in Property Sales in Spain

Property sales in Spain increased by 12.6% in May compared with the previous month, with the Balearics seeing the biggest increases, according to the latest data from the National Statistics Office.

house in Marbella 300x225 - Rise in Property Sales in SpainThe data also shows that new home sales were down 8% from a year earlier and second hand homes up by 16% which could be good news for those who have been unable to sell.

The biggest annual increases in May were in the Balearics with a rise of 33.1, Cantabria was up 30.4%, Andalucia was up 10.7% and Catalonia was up 3.1%.

The biggest decreases were reported in Castilla-La Mancha with a fall of 15.2%, Galicia with a fall of 6% and Comunidad de Madrid was down 5.5%.

Meanwhile, the latest figures from the General Council of Notaires shows a sharp rise in the number of Chinese buyers in Spain, suggesting that they are responding to the golden visa rules which grant citizenship to non European Union nationals who invest a minimum of €500,000 in real estate.
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