 Spanish Property Market Report 2007/2008
Introduction to Regional Spanish Property Markets
It must be stressed that the Spanish property market is comprised of many different regional property markets and segments, each with its own dynamics.
Cheap box apartments on the Costa del Sol have little in common with luxury villas on Marbella’s Golden Mile, and even less in common with luxury villas in Mallorca, or traditional stone houses in Asturias. They are in totally different markets, with different buyers, vendors, budgets, and supply / demand issues.
So sweeping statements and headlines about the Spanish property market can be misleading, as they usually fail to capture the reality of different regions and segments, which sometimes move in very different directions. If you want to buy or sell in Spain, you need to understand the reality of the particular market that interests you. One big segment might be hogging the headlines with a crash, but that’s not much use to you if the segment that interests you is actually rising.
That said, all segments are affected, to a certain extent, by the same macro-economic issues like interest rates and consumer confidence, and bad news in one segment does tend to rub off on others, dragging down prices across the board. This contagion between segments can lead to the mis-pricing of property in relatively healthy segments, creating opportunities for well informed buyers who know how to exploit this.
In the next section, we use the Costa del Sol’s property market as a case study to illustrate different market segments in the same region.
© Mark Stucklin (Spanish Property Insight)
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