2010: A Lively Start for Spanish Property
January 5th, 2010
Anyone interested in property in Andalucía, or Spain for that matter, should read this annual report on the market by Barbara Wood of The Property Finders, a buyer’s agent. It turns out the quality end of the market is alive and well and delivering great opportunities for buyers.
I totally agree with Barbara’s comments about the lack of reliable house price data in Spain: “The official Ministry of Housing figures are distorted by under-declarations of the sale price in the past, while the oft-quoted TINSA stats are based on subjective market appraisals.”
Unfortunately, I’d include our own Spanish house price index in that category of ‘unreliable’ data too. We’ve just published an update for Q4 2009 but this catalogue of property asking prices bears no relation to actual transaction prices.
Again, as Barbara states: “If the owner has no urgent reason to sell and the asking price remains at a 2007 level, even in a prime location it won’t find a buyer. It may well happen that they eventually do get their price but that will be because it converges with a rising market.
Much of what’s currently on offer in Spain at the moment falls into that category. As evidenced by our own price index, asking prices haven’t fallen sufficiently to reflect the reduced prices buyers are now willing to pay. Unfortunately, even pricing property competitively isn’t enough to ensure a sale – it also must be a ‘quality’ property.
One more quote from Barbara’s article: “.. There are no buyers for second-rate positions. Buyers are able to pick and choose like never before and things overlooked in the boom will be flagged as a problem now.”
If you’re at all interested in buying Spanish property in 2010, make sure you read the complete article here.
Aside from continuing to sift through the mountain of news stories over the break, we also launched a new Spanish current affairs blog. It’s updated several times a day from mostly Spanish-language news sources and translated into English for you.
Here are a few articles which caught my eye:
- New Year Spanish Tax Hikes
- Spanish EU Presidency Begins
- Tax Evasion on Rental Properties in Spain
- Spanish Minimum Wage Rises
We’ll also be experimenting with some non-English language blogs during January and, with our Portal47 hat on, we’ll be blogging for other countries too. Here are our early efforts at collecting news stories related to French property and property in Portugal.
Kyero.com certainly has a lot on its plate in 2010 – and it seems that you are also revving up for a busy year. On Sunday, January 3rd we recorded our busiest day ever for Spanish properties viewed on Kyero.com. Our statistics for December 2009 also showed increases of around 80% over the same period in 2008.
It looks like 2010 is set to be a lively year.
Martin Dell, Kyero.com
Related Posts
- What Will You Pay for a Spanish Property in 2010?
- Spanish Land Prices Start To Fall
- Optimism for Spanish Property in 2010?
