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Saw this article in Idealista. The projections seem strange to me – rising sales over next two years, followed by a big decline. Maybe they are factoring in the 160k residency measure (if it is confirmed this year)?
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I can’t see the 160,000 buy residencia scheme having much success. Don’t forget they will then be taxed on their worldwide income. New regulations this year are that a list of assets for everything over 50,000 must be declared…even your pension pot and offshore stash. (stiff fines for those not complying) This will put off the rich and the poor won’t be allowed to work.
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The rich won’t be put off one iota by the tax laws. They have accountants to deal with that type of thing. You think the Chinese were put off coming to Spain by the tax laws? 🙄
The people they’re talking about taking advantage of this law change – Russians, Libyans, Chinese etc. – are looking for a better place to live, away from political or religious persecution. -
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I liken the housing market to the stock market, they’re both casinos if you’re an investor, and neither allow for the idiocies of human nature.
Last year I was asked to advise a friend of a friend who wanted to buy a holiday home here in Spain. I wasted a couple of hours of my time telling the lady from London not to buy a holiday home in Spain at this time.
Needless to say, she bought one, and just about the daftest one on the market. It was in a poorly built apartment block, facing the wrong way, with hardly any infrastructure in place, and empty of neighbours, a dangerous place to live, especially for a lady.
And this lady had run her own business for years. But, what do I know? It will probably treble in value in a couple of years if a war happens in some part of the world, or the euro collapses and the pound takes off again.
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This is from street observations and nothing more: There are now more Chinese businesses than non-Chinese businesses in the Fort Pienc neighborhood bordered by San Joan, Vilanova-Ali Bei, Sardenya and Grand Via, about 14 square blocks. So much so that I’d call it Chinatown. And this happened post-crisis.
As this was one of my target neighborhoods for buying a place, I am very familiar with it. 6 years ago, it was not like this. I remember seeing maybe 5 Chinese businesses and remember quite well how odd it seemed to see a Chinese family renovating a flat on a Sunday.
There are a few businesses that are focused upon only Chinese. What’s different about this neighborhood is that there are no closed businesses. No empty streets. Another interesting albeit subjective observation is that the Chinese seem to want to integrate with Spanish society.
Of course, the Chinese immigrants are not only located in this neighborhood – they can be found all over Barcelona. And they come from different parts of China – I’m sure that the fruit-vegetable stand near my place is owned and operated by people from the Shan Dong province. People there are known for being out-going, very friendly and having great senses of humor.
Now it is true that among immigrant groups, the Chinese stand-out because of their appearance and their alphabet, so it’s easy to be mistaken about the percent of all immigrants who are Chinese. But I still believe that Chinese immigration is much higher than the official counts.
I read someplace that last year, 20% of all Spain’s immigrants located in Barcelona, a city with just 3.4% of Spain’s total population. [ERROR: 20% of all Spain’s immigrants locate in Catalunya, a region with 16% of Spain’s total population. Sorry about the error.] Given the aging of Spain’s population, this bodes well for Barcelona and Catalunya assuming this influx is properly managed. Having visited a government refugee center here in Barcelona, I was impressed at the compassion displayed by the civil servants. Hopefully there is adequate planning in schools, infrastructure, etc.
All to say that I think the housing market in Barcelona will rebound long before other parts of the country, and it already may be rebounding.
That said, I should note that an atico I looked at 2 years ago in this Fort Pienc neighborhood is still for sale, now asking 320k, which is down from 400k. It was a great flat with a big terrace but it had a tragically small and barely usable kitchen, with a large support column right in the middle of it.
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Barcelona is well on its way to becoming a cosmopolitan international city like London; its location close to the French border and the Med also help enormously. Of course there are disadvantages as well as plus points – for example first time buyers will be excluded from the housing market. But various startup conferences, Mobile World Congresses and the like are now held in Barcelona.
In fact my opinion is that anyone wanting to buy a house in Spain yet intending to work, should stick to larger towns, where there is chance of work. I know more and more people work via the web, but as mentioned previously the better web connections are to be found in the cities and large towns. It’s also beneficial if you are a freelance worker, to base yourself in a city as you can network with others in the same sector. There are guiri-business groups that meet in both Barcelona and Madrid. -
@mgspain wrote:
“Networking”
Is it 1997 ?You’d be surprised at how many meet-ups take place in the start-up world. One of the many reasons why cities like London, Madrid, Barcelona and Berlin are so popular for techie types – they can meet with others of their ilk and learn latest trends/opportunities.
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Just as we’ve been discussing Barcelona, here comes news that the Dutch web travel company Booking.com are to create a centre in the Catalan capital, creating 250 jobs. In itself it is barely a dent in the figures, but it’s progress in the right direction.
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@brianc_li wrote:
Dutch web travel company Booking.com
At the risk of being pedantic, booking.com is a subsidiary of the Nasdaq listed Priceline.com (PCLN) corporation. It is thus American rather than Dutch. Their European HQ is in Amsterdam but that is it.
Not that it matters either way (it’s good news in that it’s bringing jobs to Barcelona), but the info in Wikipedia suggests it was a Dutch firm that became an acquisition of Priceline. Either way, they are choosing to invest in Barcelona.
Harrods was owned until recently by an Egyptian, but it was/is still described as a British department store.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priceline.com
Priceline is the parent company of the European organization Booking.com. Established in 1996, Booking.com is the world’s leading online hotel reservations agency by room nights sold, attracting over 30 million unique visitors each month via the Internet from both leisure and business markets worldwide.[12] Booking.com offers many types of property, ranging from small independent hotels to a five star luxury through Booking.com. The Booking.com website is available in 41 languages and offers over 240,000 hotels in 167 countries.
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@jakesuper wrote:
I am certain that there are still some people (mugs) who are buying property in Spain right now but what makes people buy a property in Spain right now when it is obvious to anybody with half a brain that you will be able to buy it at a much cheaper price in the future?
If you need somewhere to live today and can afford to buy it, do you put off buying it for 5 years because you think it might be cheaper? Or do you rent throwing thousands down a black hole instead?
I’m interested in knowing your reasons for why property in Spain will be cheaper in the future because I’ve only got half a brain. 🙄
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@zenkarma wrote:
I’m interested in knowing your reasons for why property in Spain will be cheaper in the future because I’ve only got half a brain. 🙄
As much brain as that 😆
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Mark those charts are exactly how I would think of the recovery for Spain. In one of the other topics on here, prediction for the year, I said I thought there would be a little spike up this year but it would be short lived, that chart kind of reflects it.
We must remember the chart is a representation of Sales, so very little to do with Price. But in most economies when dealing with house sales, when total sales are dropping and during the beginning of a sales recovery, prices are still dropping! Price only recovers when there are sustained sales growth.
I think this is going to be true in Spain because right now they are so price conscious it is bordering disgusting (sorry to use that word, but it is). The Spanish economy is destroying itself from within, you cannot highlight a value proposition, from bread, to lights, to brand of tires, to transportation. I can understand a portion of it due to the rise in taxes, decrease in salaries and a decrease in pricing power, but if an economy cannot up-sell a product this country will be one big import hub with all things Chinese (no offence)..
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Edward Hugh linked to the this article today. If it is a true assessment, Europe will eventually collapse into a few countries and the ‘real estate’ market will never recover, excepting in those countries:
We have already seen the results of austerity in the small country of Latvia, a supposed success story. A country with an already low birthrate even by European standards (ranked 195th out of 222 countries in 2012 by the CIA World Factbook), the country lost 200,000 people between 2000 and 2010. Now, the population stands where it was in 1957 and estimates from the Ministry of Economics indicate that Latvia could have as few as 1.6 million people by 2030. Latvians joke that in 2030 the last Latvian can “shut off the lights at Riga airport”—but the first to leave the country have been those with higher degrees, a classic “brain drain” situation. Agencies in Latvia arrange for educated, middle-aged Latvians to emigrate to the UK or Ireland, where they will work on farms or in factories for low wages. The Latvian government claims that the demographic crisis is at the top of its agenda, but serious measures have yet to be implemented. Despite the continuing claims of success and growth from supporters of austerity, it is hard to imagine anything but a country in decline under these circumstances.
More here:
http://www.policyshop.net/home/2013/2/5/austerity-is-a-demographic-disaster-for-europe.html
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@GarySFBCN wrote:
I’m interested in knowing your reasons for why property in Spain will be cheaper in the future because I’ve only got half a brain.
Overdose of pineapple and the occasional sausage.
Can you answer the question with something more than a flippant comment? Or do you simply not know the answer?
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Can you answer the question with something more than a flippant comment? Or do you simply not know the answer?
It appears you were asking jakesuper your original question. I’ve blocked his posts a long time ago, so I can’t cut and paste and demonstrate why my answer to you is not flippant. But you can find everything you need to know in the thread linked below.
Apologies for appearing to be flippant to you.
http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6422
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@GarySFBCN wrote:
It appears you were asking jakesuper your original question. I’ve blocked his posts a long time ago, so I can’t cut and paste and demonstrate why my answer to you is not flippant. But you can find everything you need to know in the thread linked below.
Ahh, I see where the sausage meat and pineapple chunks comment comes from now. You’ll have to forgive me as I’m fairly new here and took that comment as flippancy when it was really a nod to someone else. Apology not necessary but cheerfully accepted. Thank you.
My question was why the original poster felt that it was fairly obvious that Spanish property prices would continue to fall. Whilst it’s quite possible that will happen, I’m not sure in my own mind that it’s quite as obvious as some people might think. So my question was really, what are you reasons for holding that opinion.
Property price falls are all relative, they have to be relative to something for them to be considered to fall. Let’s take an example such as a 4 bed villa with a pool in a nice location. Lets say at the height of the market that property sold for €350k, given the fall in the market to todays prices of say 60%, the price of that villa today would likely be somewhere around €200-220k. Would I pay that for that Villa in todays market? No. I’d want to buy that Villa for €150k tops in todays market, that’s how much that villa is worth to me personally and how much I’d be prepared to pay for it. Does that mean it’s worth €150k in todays market? No. It’s only worth what someone is prepared to pay and how much someone is prepared to sell for.
Arbitrary values plucked out of thin air as asking prices based purely on what something cost x years ago are simply that – arbitrary. They bear no relation whatsoever to a price someone is prepared to pay in todays market. This is one of the biggest problems facing the current Spanish property market – prices based on what people overpaid for these properties in an unrealistic and unsustainable boom market x years ago and compounded by mortgages on those properties that are sometimes higher than their current market prices.
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@jakesuper wrote:
I am certain that there are still some people (mugs) who are buying property in Spain right now but what makes people buy a property in Spain right now when it is obvious to anybody with half a brain that you will be able to buy it at a much cheaper price in the future?
Jake – you may wish to look at your link – instead of displaying your “wisdom” about Spain, it appears to show a rant against someone called Gavin Greenway. Could be libellous, so may be better to resolve?
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@DBMarcos99 wrote:
@jakesuper wrote:
I am certain that there are still some people (mugs) who are buying property in Spain right now but what makes people buy a property in Spain right now when it is obvious to anybody with half a brain that you will be able to buy it at a much cheaper price in the future?
Jake – you may wish to look at your link – instead of displaying your “wisdom” about Spain, it appears to show a rant against someone called Gavin Greenway. Could be libellous, so may be better to resolve?
Gavin Greenway used to post on housepricecrash.co.uk and had a run in with one of Jake’s alter egos
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@zenkarma wrote:
@GarySFBCN wrote:
It appears you were asking jakesuper your original question. I’ve blocked his posts a long time ago, so I can’t cut and paste and demonstrate why my answer to you is not flippant. But you can find everything you need to know in the thread linked below.
Ahh, I see where the sausage meat and pineapple chunks comment comes from now. You’ll have to forgive me as I’m fairly new here and took that comment as flippancy when it was really a nod to someone else. Apology not necessary but cheerfully accepted. Thank you.
My question was why the original poster felt that it was fairly obvious that Spanish property prices would continue to fall. Whilst it’s quite possible that will happen, I’m not sure in my own mind that it’s quite as obvious as some people might think. So my question was really, what are you reasons for holding that opinion.
Property price falls are all relative, they have to be relative to something for them to be considered to fall. Let’s take an example such as a 4 bed villa with a pool in a nice location. Lets say at the height of the market that property sold for €350k, given the fall in the market to todays prices of say 60%, the price of that villa today would likely be somewhere around €200-220k. Would I pay that for that Villa in todays market? No. I’d want to buy that Villa for €150k tops in todays market, that’s how much that villa is worth to me personally and how much I’d be prepared to pay for it. Does that mean it’s worth €150k in todays market? No. It’s only worth what someone is prepared to pay and how much someone is prepared to sell for.
Arbitrary values plucked out of thin air as asking prices based purely on what something cost x years ago are simply that – arbitrary. They bear no relation whatsoever to a price someone is prepared to pay in todays market. This is one of the biggest problems facing the current Spanish property market – prices based on what people overpaid for these properties in an unrealistic and unsustainable boom market x years ago and compounded by mortgages on those properties that are sometimes higher than their current market prices.
Agreed. However as MGSpain has hinted it also depends on how much you expect the price to go up. A €150k villa costs you about €17k to buy these days and, when the time comes, maybe €10k to sell. Factor in running costs as well, and you really need to sell at some kind of profit to make the project a financially worthwhile alternative to renting.
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I posted at the beginning of the year that this may be the year when Spanish property prices stop falling. Without regurgitating the well-known facts concerning over-supply, banking failures and a host of other reasons, I based my optimism purely on personal observations of the small area of Spain I am very familiar with, the Alicante province.
Local estate agents are selling properties again, in numbers, to all sorts of people including Russians and the Chinese, as well as Scandinavians and Brits. The Reduced signs have gone and the agents have stayed clear of repossessions.
Although prices may have stopped falling, a forward prediction is impossible because nobody knows what the Banco Malo is going to do with their toxic ‘assets’. If they throw them on to the market en masse, all bets are off.
My optimism has suffered a set back when Rajoy stabbed me in the back. If the allegations are true, he will have taken his country back into the stone age.
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@itsme wrote:
Spain didn’t ever get out of the stone age did it?
I know your comment is tongue in cheek, and suspect that your knowledge of real Spain is better than mine, but here goes.
I could post a hundred of pages of things I don’t like about Spain, and another hundred of pages of things I love about the country. As a foreigner.
It really is a question of individual preference. I feel I’m wavering from the original post, but does it matter? When I walk around my garden in the morning as the sun rises, I’m happy. When I go into a Spanish cafe for my recuperative morning coffee in noisy surroundings, I’m happy.
To offset the happiness aspect, when I come across Spanish drivers I could easily copy Bruce Willis and wipe out the lot of them.
But I prefer Alicante to Margate, it’s not a hanging offence, is it?
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@Chopera wrote:
Gavin Greenway used to post on housepricecrash.co.uk and had a run in with one of Jake’s alter egos
The STR’s on that website are no longer asking where is the best place to put their STR fund money they made in selling their property because the dramatic fall in savings rates that have occurred in the last few months as a result of the Bank of England’s funding for lending scheme means that the STR’s are screwed as they are earning a negative real rate of interest when you take inflation into account. It’s been a long time since I have seen anyone on that website brag about where they have put their STR fund money and the reason for this is that regardless where they have put their money the pathetically low interest rates means that their money is being wiped out by inflation.
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It was tongue in cheek ish 😉
I do like Spain, I wouldn’t go as far to say love….but it’s nice and sunny. It will take me a long time to get over the angry feeling of being conned and having to pay through the nose for corrupt bankers who stole from us. They are probably living the high life with all their ill gains. But hey ho….
I was thinking of this forum when I walked to collect my kids from school yesterday. It was blowing a freezing gale… but I thought, I would rather be here in Ireland than in the sunshine in Spain. But, i’m 35 years old and I guess slightly older bones don’t enjoy freezing wind as much.
There are people who enjoy Spain. They paid a price they are happy with and the actual living costs are lower than in the UK. If these people learn to speak a bit of Spanish they can get buy but to not to learn enough to really understand then I guess you can have a lovely time in Spain. Just don’t get involved with the town hall, banks etc. pay your bills and just accept it as ‘when in Rome’. It’s when you find out more and you get all British and try to fight it and then you’ll have heartache. Well that and having to deal with the sadness of the animal cruelty and having dogs dumped on you because you are an animal loving Brit etc.
Agree regarding the driving. My husband has a friend who took his driving test, failed and when he went crying to his influencial mum he actually got it changed to a ‘passed’. I believe the driving test is ‘fast down the motorway and try to tailgate the car infront as much as possible’. My husband is quite smug as he did his test in the UK so says to them that he actually learnt how to drive properly (he’s learning 😉
Back to the post and I believe that people will keep buying, especially if things get depressing in the UK. People are always looking for that ‘thing’ to make them happy. They’ll go to Spain on holiday (didn’t I read that Brits spent 500 million or so in 2012 as tourists?) so they’ll go out on holiday, enjoy the sunshine cafe lifestyle and cheap booze. An estate agents window will show properties with pools for less than 100k and they’ll be hooked at how ‘cheap’ it is compared to back home.
I hope that they read this forum first though….
I guess the Scandinavians and Russians etc. will be doing the same. Sunshine and cheaper property than in boom years and they’ll be hooked. How many won’t even bother checking out the community fees or taxes they’ll have to pay?
ps Jake, maybe you should put your byline in one colour as i’m now reading it as T h p. with the red dominating what it actually says. 🙂
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Onlyme,
I think that Spain is losing its appeal. There was a time when the destination of choice for second home owners was Spain but that was in the days when the BBC scheduled the failed programme “Eldorado” but now people in the UK are beginning to see Spain for what it really is, a corrupt third world sleazy cesspit, that is even more corrupt than Britain, and fast regressing back to the middle-ages, which is really saying something.
If I had to advise someone on the best place to buy a holiday home hassle free then I would say buy it in Portugal. Afterall the Respect MP “George Galloway” owns a cottage in Portugal in the resort of “Praia da Luz” where Madeleine McCann was killed, I mean disappeared.
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Yes the sun is a big pull. Freezing here today. House is cosy though. I still remember the cold spanish houses. They felt like -2C when the temperature dropped below 14C 😀 Sun is fine but gets you down in July and August…then there is the lack of security. Pensioners are now turning up at the health centres to find they have been whooshed from the system.
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Pensioners are now turning up at the health centres to find they have been whooshed from the system.
Let’s hope it never gets as bad as Stafford. Imagine the field day certain posters would have if this had happened in modern-day Spain? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274296/Mid-Staffs-report-Families-head-NHS-resign-damning-scandal.html
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@DBMarcos99 wrote:
Like I said “Imagine the field day certain posters would have if this had happened in modern-day Spain?”
Well there are plenty of similar stories about Spains health failures on the web. beds in corridors, negligence, long waiting lists, old people homes scandals. Do you want me to post some links when I have time 8)
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@itsme wrote:
It was tongue in cheek ish 😉
I do like Spain, I wouldn’t go as far to say love….but it’s nice and sunny. It will take me a long time to get over the angry feeling of being conned and having to pay through the nose for corrupt bankers who stole from us. They are probably living the high life with all their ill gains. But hey ho….
I was thinking of this forum when I walked to collect my kids from school yesterday. It was blowing a freezing gale… but I thought, I would rather be here in Ireland than in the sunshine in Spain. But, i’m 35 years old and I guess slightly older bones don’t enjoy freezing wind as much.
There are people who enjoy Spain. They paid a price they are happy with and the actual living costs are lower than in the UK. If these people learn to speak a bit of Spanish they can get buy but to not to learn enough to really understand then I guess you can have a lovely time in Spain. Just don’t get involved with the town hall, banks etc. pay your bills and just accept it as ‘when in Rome’. It’s when you find out more and you get all British and try to fight it and then you’ll have heartache. Well that and having to deal with the sadness of the animal cruelty and having dogs dumped on you because you are an animal loving Brit etc.
Agree regarding the driving. My husband has a friend who took his driving test, failed and when he went crying to his influencial mum he actually got it changed to a ‘passed’. I believe the driving test is ‘fast down the motorway and try to tailgate the car infront as much as possible’. My husband is quite smug as he did his test in the UK so says to them that he actually learnt how to drive properly (he’s learning 😉
Back to the post and I believe that people will keep buying, especially if things get depressing in the UK. People are always looking for that ‘thing’ to make them happy. They’ll go to Spain on holiday (didn’t I read that Brits spent 500 million or so in 2012 as tourists?) so they’ll go out on holiday, enjoy the sunshine cafe lifestyle and cheap booze. An estate agents window will show properties with pools for less than 100k and they’ll be hooked at how ‘cheap’ it is compared to back home.
I hope that they read this forum first though….
I guess the Scandinavians and Russians etc. will be doing the same. Sunshine and cheaper property than in boom years and they’ll be hooked. How many won’t even bother checking out the community fees or taxes they’ll have to pay?
ps Jake, maybe you should put your byline in one colour as i’m now reading it as T h p. with the red dominating what it actually says. 🙂
When I came to Spain, to the CDS first of all, I quickly learned that many things were different to the UK. I fought against it for a short time, but then decided to copy my Spanish neighbours and even took on a Spanish business partner.
I’ve been living that way ever since and I’m happy with it. If it’s good enough for Spanish people in their own country, who am I to argue.
Having said that, the various new ways of collecting all sorts of taxes and a few other horrors, specifically aimed at guiris like me, make me glad to have retained a small haven back in the UK should the wheel come off in Spain.
I hope it doesn’t, but if they do send the Navy to return us expats home, I will be on the very last ship out.
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@katy wrote:
@DBMarcos99 wrote:
Like I said “Imagine the field day certain posters would have if this had happened in modern-day Spain?”
Well there are plenty of similar stories about Spains health failures on the web. beds in corridors, negligence, long waiting lists, old people homes scandals. Do you want me to post some links when I have time 8)
What, a modern day local health authority in Spain responsible for at least 1,200 deaths?
Be honest, you wouldn’t have stopped commentating on it , if it had happened.
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Well as it’s a spanish forum I would have put it on. If i want to talk about the UK I could comment in the DM or Telegraph couldn’t I. I could tell you lots of stories about spanish hospitals. OH worked in one for a year and a relative, an eye specialist who bought my house works in one too. Don’t forget the spanish authorities aren’t transparent either. I think the biggest problem with ex-pats right now is accessing health care in Spain now they have moved the goalposts. Unlike the UK where according to a spanish forum they only have to turn up with a passport to get treated. Funny version of the word “reprocical” 🙄
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@Chopera wrote:
Big difference between Spain (well Madrid at least) and UK is that the hospital is expected to provide medication, etc but the family provides the care. Something like mid staffs is less likely to happen because there will usually be a member of the family there with the patient all the time.
Yes correct. There is talk of doing this in the UK to save money. Pros and cons, especially if you don’t have close family. When a friend was in she had to lie flat for 3 days and relied on her Husband to call in at 3pm to help feed her. I know that in Valencia some hospitals have stopped supplying dressings to outpatients, also special food supplements for cancer patients. Some are having to pay 100€ pm for this. Plenty of stuff on the spanish fora.
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