It may come as no surprise that location plays a significant part. Especially, when it comes to purchasing a Spanish property for investment or choice of holiday home. If in the market, you should look identify a desirable location, paying particular attention to the views. Also, make sure the property isn’t miles away from the beach.
Holidaymakers or investors will also want a quick walk to shops and restaurants, rather than a 30 minute trek. Of course, the nearer a property is to the beach, the effects on the value will be significantly more favourable. Identifying a location that you’d really like to live, with convenient access to local amenities is always good news, especially if you intend to rent the property in the future. However if you are stuck to a limited budget, you may find that there are compromises that you can make.
There are still many individuals that don’t just want to buy Spanish property for investment. Retired people, for instance who like the idea of living in a country with a warm climate will be purchasing a property with a view to occupying it for number of years. If this is the case, then now could well be a good time to take the plunge.
Despite what you hear on news or in the press, properties are still retaining their values in areas such as Marbella and Sotogrande. This is because historically, the scale of increased property production was significantly less in these areas, coupled with the fact that wealthy middle classes want to live in these locations anyway.
There is no doubt that things have changed, and back in the day a lot of people were buying ‘off plan’ developments on the promise of enhancements and facilities that never ended up getting built. A lot of people have suffered sleepless nights as well as endless legal wrangling because of this.
Buying on the promise of holiday rental income that would meet almost any cost was another tactic that many estate agents used to sell properties. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be, and because of the recession many holidaymakers just weren’t coming in the same volume as they used to.
Although the market has shrunk, it seems to have more stability even though there are many unsold properties and developments. In major cities the market is processing surplus properties, but on the fringes this is going to take a lot more time.
In place of Brits, there are reports of Germans and Nordics emerging as serious buyers for the more desirable ‘A list’ locations like Marbella, Sotogrande, Madrid and Barcelona. Official figures report and national fall by roughly 11% since their peak, but there are other estimations out there that would suggest fall of more than 20%. This makes it a buyers market, but as mentioned previously, choose the location carefully if buying for investment.
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