Spanish house prices have fallen back to where they where seven years ago, according to the Government’s House Price Index (Fomento).
House prices fell 7.2pc in Q1 compared to the same time last year.
The average cost of housing in Euros/m2 now stands at 1,649€/m2, basically where it was at the start of 2005, when the Government first started publishing this particular index.
This index isn’t very reliable but it does help to illustrate the house prices are clearly going down (see chart above).
Interesting – maybe – that since the beginning of May 07 to today 1/5/12, the £ has gained about 20% against the Euro and average Spanish property prices have declined 20% over the same period, according to the graph above. We know it’s way off but I like the idea of turning that graph upside down to get a picture of GBP v Euro
The piece in S.P.I. at the beginning of April on the stall in the rise of GBP – stuck around 1.19 – now looks a bit dated. At 1 a.m. BST last night Citibank had GBP=1.23 Euro. It’s 1.225 now but the rise seems set to continue.
To illustrate that things in UK may not be so gloomy as the doom-sayers are wont to have us believe, I’ve accepted an offer on my house of less than 2% off the asking, two weeks after it hit the agency’s listings. In case you think I priced low to achieve this, the asking was £5k more than the asking recommended by 3 other agents who did not get the job – and £25k more than one who must check in to the nearest clinic.
So, Spanish property prices falling, GBP rising – I’m going fishing for a bit.