Looking for general advice / opinion

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    • #187451
      Dom
      Participant

      Hi all,

      I am certainly not new to property, I own 5 in the UK and have done for many years. However Spain is a new venture to me. I am looking to buy on the Costa del sol and have read with interest a lot of the posts on here about inflated “for sale” prices on Spanish websites. Looking at some of the posts, properties which people report as selling for euro40,000 are advertised at euro 80,000 so it seems that prices advertised on the web can be taken with a pinch of salt.

      I have seen a development in Urb Riviera Sol near Calahonda called “Hollywood Hills”. Clearly from my initial research a lot seems bank owned and in line with posts on here I can see wildly varying prices on different websites just from initial investigation. So, as someone who normally uses nethouseprice.com for sales data in the UK and yield to assess values it seems that much of the information is either unavailable or cant be trusted in respect of Spain.

      So, my question is, how do you perform your due diligence regarding buying in Spain and is it really the case that “for sale” prices are really just the fantasy of the seller / bank or do they bare any relation to reality. I certainly not rushing into this (30 years of buying property has taught me to do my homework and take time)… I am really at the early stages at the moment but this forum seems to have people with a decent insight so I thought I would try and get some tips / ideas from you all before I got my feet on the ground and started visits (early October for my first visit). Many thanks in advance, all posts welcome. Best wishes : Dom

    • #187518
      Mark Stücklin
      Keymaster

      Hi Dom,

      I’m sad to say that it is difficult to find out market prices in Spain. The only ones who really know transaction prices are the sales organisations like estate agents and the bank servicers. If you can find a good agent you trust, that’s the best way to go. Some would argue you can’t trust any of them, but that is, of course, untrue.

      That said, it is relatively easy to compare asking prices using portals like Idealista and Fotocasa, which allows you to identify which properties are priced in line with the market asking price, and which are over/under. This is easier when looking for flats in a city than cortijos in the countryside

      How realistic are asking prices? It’s a very good question, and one that I need to tackle in an article.

      For many years average asking prices were unrealistic, but now vendor expectations have come down so far in some areas (see graph below) they are much closer to market prices, and even starting to look cheap in some places. It all depends on the property and the area.

      For example, last year in Barcelona asking prices were typically around 10pc above transaction prices (for properties that were correctly priced). Now the gap between asking prices and closing prices is more like 5pc, or even less. In the Costa del Sol, as an average, I guess the gap is around 10pc today, but I could be wrong. I’ll ask around and post back if I found out any different.

      spanish property asking prices peak to present q4 2007

    • #187747
      jp1
      Participant

      It really isn’t that difficult…

      You are either buying for private use, in which case you will pay what you believe is a correct price for you… Or…

      You are either buying for investment purposes in which case you can look around at the 1000’s of properties for sale and chose the least expensive.

      In the UK the market is a properly functioning one. You can look at a property advertised on a street and know how much the others in that street are roughly worth, the UK market is uniform. No so in Spain.

       

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