property market Archives - Page 4 of 6

Spanish Property Market is on the Verge of Recovery

SpainHouses.netJune 16, 2014April 2, 2020Leave a comment

The downward trend in the property market in Spain is drawing to a close and it is unemployment that is hindering a full recovery, according to the International Monetary Fund.

With unemployment still hovering around 26% the real estate sector is unlikely to move into full recovery mode just yet, says the report author James Daniel, head of the IMF’s Spain mission.

But the report does point out that the country’s economy has ‘turned the corner’ after economic improvements took hold in the second half of last year and continued in the first quarter of 2014. Indeed, it adds that the Spanish economy is now growing at its fastest pace since 2008.

It also says that labour reform and wage moderation are helping turn job destruction to job creation. Compared to a year before, unemployment fell in the first quarter of 2014 and jobs, as measured by social security affiliations, increased by about 200,000 in April.
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Property sales increased more in Marbella last year than anywhere else in Spain

SpainHouses.netMarch 18, 2014Leave a comment

The property market in Marbella is recovering and the town is now showing signs of being a leader in this sector. This emblematic town on the Costa del Sol ended last year with a total of 3,115 property sales , a figure which is similar to that of 2007, before the bubble burst. In terms of total figures, Marbella is now in a similar position to Malaga city, where the recovery in the property market has failed to take off and the number of sales has fallen for three consecutive years.

The results for property transactions last year, which have just been released by the Ministry of Development, reveal that Marbella is the Spanish town in which the number of sales has increased the most, by 23.6 per cent.

The Ministry’s statistics include all provincial capitals and towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Marbella has ranked higher than Parla (17.2%), Móstoles (12.7%), Guadalajara (12.5 %), Ceuta (10.3%) and Madrid (9.3 %).

In total, in the whole of Spain there were 300,349 property transactions last year, which is a drop of 17.4 per cent compared with 2012.
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The debate is over: no skyscrapers in Marbella (Málaga) 2

SpainHouses.netJanuary 13, 2014January 13, 20142 Comments

Ángeles Muñoz, Mayor of Marbella, has announced that the controversial plans to build skyscrapers in the town will not go ahead, and the debate about them is over. She did not say whether the modification of the town plan which was recently approved as a first step towards building the tower blocks would be debated again by the council with a view to annulling it.

Backtracking on her previous statement to the effect that no decision would be made until a public board had been convened and consulted, and in the face of strong opposition, the mayor said that it would not be necessary to wait for January and the advice of the yet-to-be-created board, because the decision had been taken.

In the mayor’s opinion, this means an end to the debate about the project for skyscrapers. Asked about the creation in Marbella of a citizen platform made up of promoters, architects and ecologists who are opposed to the project, she said:

“Anybody can form a group and debate. If a platform is set up we will be delighted to hear its opinions, but on the part of the local government I am telling you there is no intention to go ahead,” (in reference to the skyscrapers).
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Las Vegas Sands Drops Madrid Resort Plans

SpainHouses.netJanuary 6, 2014December 30, 2013Leave a comment

Las Vegas Sands Corp. is no longer pursuing plans to invest more than $30 billion to develop a series of integrated resorts in Madrid, Spain.

"While the government and many others have worked diligently on this effort, we do not see a path in which the criteria needed to move forward with this large-scale development can be reached," Las Vegas Sands chairman and chief executive Sheldon G. Adelson, said in a company statement. "As a result we will no longer be pursuing this opportunity."

The Spanish government rejected a series of conditions LVS had placed in order to continue with the Europa Vegas project because they were incompatible with European Union law, Spain's deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, told The Wall Street Journal.

Conditions included government investment guarantees and for a compensation deal to cover any losses related to changes to Spanish laws in the future, WSJ reports.
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Spanish Property Market: House Prices Rise on Quarterly Basis

SpainHouses.netDecember 23, 2013December 20, 2013Leave a comment

House prices in Spain rose on a quarterly basis for the first time since the middle of 2010 in the third quarter of this year, but experts were quick to point out that this does not mean that the housing market has started to emerge from trough it plunged into around the start of 2008.

According to figures released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), house prices climbed 0.7 percent in the period July-September from the previous three months.

Prices on average have fallen over 40 percent from their highs around the end of 2007 after more than doubling over the course of a decade-long boom that turned to bust.

The INE said that home sales in October declined 10 percent from the same month a year earlier to 22,770, the lowest figure since March and one of the lowest since the real estate bubble burst.

Although the economy emerged from an extended recession in the third quarter of this year, a jobless rate of 26 percent remains a major impediment to a recovery in the housing market, which still has an estimated glut of some 600,000 housing units. Banks have also tightened up on lending, citing a lack of “solvent demand.”

Would-be home buyers are finding it hard to secure the necessary funding at current prices and seven out of 10 transactions taking place are in cash.
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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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