One of the biggest developers on the Mediterranean coast reports that local buyers are taking over from foreign clients.

With more than 10 developments underway on the Spanish Mediterranean coast TM Real Estate Group has survived the crisis thanks to foreign demand, which stepped up back in 2010 and made up for the collapse in local demand. TM Group were also saved by their ability to finance new projects from own funds, and the fact that they never built far from the coast, ensuring there was always demand for their homes.

“During the last eight years we have survived thanks to international clients, but now local buyers are leading the way,” says Ángeles Serna, President of TM Group, in comments to the Spanish property portal Idealista. “Spanish buyers are now very active in new developments so long as the product is good, and are playing an important role in the gradual recovery that the sector is living through.”

Having sold almost 10,000 homes on the Spanish coast to local and foreign buyers since the 1960s, TM Group know something about the market, and the differences in preferences between nationalities. “Foreign clients are looking for a good climate, whilst national demand wants to be near the sea or have good views,” explains Serna.

Swedes are after a spacious home with good access, and are prepared to pay more to be near a good airport like Alicante. Belgians are more concerned with finding a location that offers peace and quiet yet near to amenities, and the Germans are focused on Mallorca, where 90% of them buy. “The English, for their part, are a bit of everything,” says Serna, who also reveals that TM Group clients generally don’t need a mortgage to buy.

Buyers from all groups, in particular the Spanish, are once again comfortable with buying off-plan, we are told. Their developments are now largely sold out by the time construction is finished, and they have just sold 30% of a new development in Benidorm off-plan in the space of a month.

Spanish demand is recovering with the economy, though it is still a far cry from what it was in the boom. Let’s just hope that growing Spanish demand on the coast is enough to make up for falling British demand post Brexit.