This is a website for buyers, owners, and sellers of property in Spain, offering reliable information and resources to help you get things done with confidence. It is run by Mark Stücklin, author of the Spanish Property Doctor Column in The Sunday Times (2005-2008), and the book ‘Need to Know: Buying Property in Spain’ published by Collins.
Last year’s feeble recovery in sales was a false-dawn argue Spain’s leading developers.
The G-14 lobby group of Spain’s leading developers forecasts the housing market will shrink 8.3pc by volume this year compared to last, taking the market back to where it was 6 years ago, according to recent reports in the Spanish press.
The G-14 group expect a total of 450,000 home sales this year, 8.3pc down on last year and a world away from the 900,000 sales per year they came to take for granted during the boom.
The developers are pinning their hopes on a recovery in the housing market starting in 2012, rising to 510,000 sales per year by 2015.
The small bounce in sales in 2010 was a false dawn, argue developers, who say sales rose in response to temporary factors like changes to VAT and mortgage tax relief.
The credit crunch and high unemployment lie at the root of the housing market’s weakness, they argue. The market will only recover when banks start lending and Spain creates jobs.
