The Latest Spanish Property News from Kyero.com
November 13th, 2007
Two news stories caught my eye this week. The first is about the job/skills shortage in Spain that we have experienced first-hand at Kyero.com
The majority of our technical staff are not located in Spain at all. They're currently located in London, Paris, Belfast and Rotterdam - everywhere except Spain. The problem is that the few people in Spain with appropriate technical skills are all looking for work in Madrid or Barcelona - perhaps Galicia too. The 'rest' of Spain is caught in a Catch-22 of no jobs/no skills.
Much of the 'rest' of Spain has a very seasonal employment pattern. A Spanish friend who works as a ski instructor at the Sol y Nieve resort in the Sierra Nevada enjoys a work contract for 6 months of the year - which entitles him to draw the equivalent unemployment benefit for the other 6 months.
Many restaurants which rely on tourists to fill their tables will close down in the winter and terminate work contracts. Some even go as far as bricking-up the shop-front to avoid paying local taxes on an empty building. When the tourist season starts again, the bricks come down and work contracts are reinstated.
This is a difficult market for foreigners to understand and access - especially if they don't speak Spanish. If working in Spain is part of your plan for living here full-time, this is one area where some thorough research and planning would be time well spent.
Remember last week's story where builders and constructors suggested that the way out of the current slump in the housing market was to build even more homes? I think the response of the parliament of the Balearic Islands is a little more realistic.
Rather than add to the glut of newly-built homes, they've opted for creating a more realistic balance between supply and demand by freezing construction in certain areas. Of course, there'll be some short term pain but in the mid to long term, this makes much more sense to me.
Kyero.com got a mention in the International Herald Tribune blog today. They picked up on the fact that property values are often under-declared in Spain, thus skewing the 'official' statistics for house prices.
This wouldn't be so bad if a consistent 10% or 20% of each sales price was hidden from the notary - the problem is that it's a random factor which makes comparison between properties, towns, provinces and regions completely meaningless.
One of the reasons there's so much debate about the state of the Spanish property market is that there's much doubt that the government statistics accurately reflect reality.
Our house price index isn't an ideal alternative - but it's a start. We have some audacious plans for it in 2008 - which would solve these problems completely. I hope to be able to give you some good news about this during the first quarter of 2008 - although there's a fair chance that we won't succeed in pulling it off!
Speaking of pulling it off - this Friday we'll find out how we fared against Daft.ie and Rightmove.co.uk vying for the award for 'Best International Property Portal'.
It'll be early Saturday morning (UK time) when we find out in Las Vegas - I'll post something to the Kyero.com media page when I wake up on Saturday to let you know how we got on.
By the way, thanks to all of you who sent emails of support and encouragement in our bid to win - they are very much appreciated.
Martin Dell, Kyero.com
The majority of our technical staff are not located in Spain at all. They're currently located in London, Paris, Belfast and Rotterdam - everywhere except Spain. The problem is that the few people in Spain with appropriate technical skills are all looking for work in Madrid or Barcelona - perhaps Galicia too. The 'rest' of Spain is caught in a Catch-22 of no jobs/no skills.
Much of the 'rest' of Spain has a very seasonal employment pattern. A Spanish friend who works as a ski instructor at the Sol y Nieve resort in the Sierra Nevada enjoys a work contract for 6 months of the year - which entitles him to draw the equivalent unemployment benefit for the other 6 months.
Many restaurants which rely on tourists to fill their tables will close down in the winter and terminate work contracts. Some even go as far as bricking-up the shop-front to avoid paying local taxes on an empty building. When the tourist season starts again, the bricks come down and work contracts are reinstated.
This is a difficult market for foreigners to understand and access - especially if they don't speak Spanish. If working in Spain is part of your plan for living here full-time, this is one area where some thorough research and planning would be time well spent.
Remember last week's story where builders and constructors suggested that the way out of the current slump in the housing market was to build even more homes? I think the response of the parliament of the Balearic Islands is a little more realistic.
Rather than add to the glut of newly-built homes, they've opted for creating a more realistic balance between supply and demand by freezing construction in certain areas. Of course, there'll be some short term pain but in the mid to long term, this makes much more sense to me.
Kyero.com got a mention in the International Herald Tribune blog today. They picked up on the fact that property values are often under-declared in Spain, thus skewing the 'official' statistics for house prices.
This wouldn't be so bad if a consistent 10% or 20% of each sales price was hidden from the notary - the problem is that it's a random factor which makes comparison between properties, towns, provinces and regions completely meaningless.
One of the reasons there's so much debate about the state of the Spanish property market is that there's much doubt that the government statistics accurately reflect reality.
Our house price index isn't an ideal alternative - but it's a start. We have some audacious plans for it in 2008 - which would solve these problems completely. I hope to be able to give you some good news about this during the first quarter of 2008 - although there's a fair chance that we won't succeed in pulling it off!
Speaking of pulling it off - this Friday we'll find out how we fared against Daft.ie and Rightmove.co.uk vying for the award for 'Best International Property Portal'.
It'll be early Saturday morning (UK time) when we find out in Las Vegas - I'll post something to the Kyero.com media page when I wake up on Saturday to let you know how we got on.
By the way, thanks to all of you who sent emails of support and encouragement in our bid to win - they are very much appreciated.
Martin Dell, Kyero.com
