The Latest Spanish Property News from Kyero.com

Under new town PGOU, new properties in Algorfa would turn a village with around 3,000 inhabitants into a large town with 60,000.

Every municipality in Spain has a PGOU; a plan for development in the area that is approved by the regional government. The PGOU sets out which land can or cannot be built on, which land has been set aside for building particular amenities and so on. The plan for Algorfa, currently being examined by the Valencia regional government, will free up six million square metres of land that's currently unavailable for building being freed up for development, including social housing. This is actually a reduction in the amount of building land as the previous PGOU was rejected by the regional government.

Algorfa is in the part of Alicante province that's most popular with expat property buyers and its population is currently only 45% native Spanish, and there are some fears that building new homes on the scale proposed - land has even been set aside for two new golf courses, although there are no firms in place to build them at present - will change Algorfa's character, although the town's mayor has stated that he believes many Spanish people would like to live in the municipality.

There's a hint of green to the proposed PGOU as cycle paths and footpaths between the various zones are included.

Full story from homesworldwide.co.uk

Not so long ago there were all kinds of restrictions on transferring money abroad due to currency controls that lots of countries had in place. They’re almost all gone now and it has become more of a natural thing for “ordinary people” to need to transfer money abroad.

Most of the time it’s due to holidays, of course, but an increasing number of us are becoming small scale international jet setters with homes in more than one country and with both of those come a need to transfer money abroad.

Holidays usually involve a different category of currency conversion in that you are on the spot when you need the money, the amounts involved are smaller and you probably don’t have a local bank account. However, whilst the amounts may be smaller individually, added up over the years they will come to quite a hefty sum. Also, many of those who holiday in the same country each year may be considering the purchase of a property there and so have that local account too.

Most people ignore the costs of all those international transactions to their detriment. One friend of mine found that almost 10% of his entire salary was going in such bank charges simply because he was living abroad and using his “home” account in exactly the same way that he always had ie lifting small amounts frequently.

Saving money on those transactions is usually fairly easy. If you don’t want to change your bank, check out exactly how they charge for use of credit, debit and cash cards abroad. You will usually find that debit and cash cards are more economic ways of getting cash than credit cards are in that you won’t be paying interest on the money. However, that’s not to say that they are cheap. Typically a withdrawal of £100 in the local currency will cost you £4 to £5 but note that this includes a fixed transaction charge so withdrawing £20 will cost you around £2 ie 10% whereas £200 would be about £7 ie 3.5%. You can eliminate these charges altogether if you use the UKs Nationwide Flexaccount as it has neither transaction fees nor foreign exchange charges.

It’s slightly better if you buy things, usually. Using a typical Mastercard or Visa card will only incur the foreign exchange charge ie buying £100 of goods will cost you £2.75 and that £20 item would be 70p. Therefore you should buy things with the card directly rather than lifting the cash to pay for them.

What about larger amounts ie if you’re living abroad or have a holiday home abroad? Well, if you follow our advice and get the Nationwide Flexaccount you can lift £500 per day which means that it’s quite viable to use that card in conjunction with a local bank account to transfer amounts equivalent to several thousand pounds. You certainly couldn’t buy a house in that way but it’s enough to fund the payments for electicity bills and the like.

If you are talking thousands, then the usual way is to ask your bank to do a SWIFT transfer. This will cost around £25 plus there’s a currency exchange charge (which isn’t widely available). However, that too can be eliminated in some circumstances. For example, if you bank with HSBC then you can do free transfers to an HSBC account elsewhere in the world but the HSBC Premier account that you need to avail of this costs £20/month (unless you have £50,000 or more on deposit with them) so it’s not as useful as it first appears. However, if you are buying in Spain, the Halifax run to a free account which offers free transfers from Halifax UK accounts to Halifax Spain ones. What’s less obvious is that this route gives you a pretty much free way from pounds sterling to euros anywhere in Europe as banks are required to transfer euros at the same level of charges in other European countries as they do domestically ie to get euros in an account in France, you could transfer from the Halifax UK to Halifax Spain and from there to a French bank.

Other options include the use of the specialised money transfer services such as Moneycorp (there are lots of similar services around).

Full story from foreignperspectives.com

The prediction that I am writing about is the need for holders of foreign EU driving licences (DLs) who are resident in Spain to have the periodical medicals just as the Spanish have to, and as specified in the EU Directive on the subject and I have stressed this for the last two years. For those new to Spain or the subject, until September 2004, when foreign EU citizens came to live in Spain as a resident, they had to change their driving licence for a Spanish one and that is why I have one, but this was against the EU rules and in September 2004, Spain lost the case at the European Court and so foreign DLs became legal for residents to use but the rule also stated that the foreign residents are subject to the same rules as Spanish drivers. This includes the periodical medicals as specified in my book and in my various articles on the subject.

Well, according to an email received from an expat in the Torrevieja area, what I had warned against has happened. Apparently a lady was involved in an accident where someone was seriously injured and she had a UK-DL but had not had any medicals since she arrived here, and in the ensuing Court case that followed where she was under the impression that she was faultless, a lawyer checked her DL and asked for the official medical certificate, which she did not have. As a result, her DL was declared legally expired although the expiry date on it was for a few years time and she was judged to be at fault for not having a current DL, for if she had not been driving the accident would not have happened. Plus, her almost new car, which was a write-off, was refused cover by her insurance company under their rules where, no licence, no payout. So she has lost her car, has penalty points and a fine to pay.

Here is the sad point about the subject, not many of the policing authorities seem to know this law so if you are stopped at the side of the road for a document check, you may get away with it through that officer's ignorance. However, ignorance of the law is no excuse. The official letter giving the details, in Spanish, is on my web-site at www.spainvia.com/drivelicenceletteradsl.htm and it can be printed out. Full story from roundtownnews.co.uk

I had to laugh. Just back from Las Vegas and I find that the Spanish are to build their own rival in Aragon. The climate will be a little different from Nevada though - Most of Aragon enjoys decidedly seasonal weather.

We receive more and more questions about property prices every day. Unfortunately, often the most honest answer we can offer is "we don't know, nobody knows": Not too helpful really.

I've written a number of times about the problem of getting precise house price information - and how our own House Price Index was born from that frustration. Even so, our own statistics are not perfect and their limitations have to be considered. One such limitation is sample size.

According to the Ministry of Housing, about 1 million homes were sold in Spain throughout 2006. Even with a database of 90,000 properties on Kyero.com - you can easily see that our statistics can't possibly tell the whole story.

Digging a bit deeper, it won't surprise you to learn that 20% of property sales actually occurred in the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona. On Kyero.com, however, those provinces represent less than 1% of the available properties.

So, size is important - when it comes to how representative a collection of properties is - and generally speaking, the more the merrier.

I recently came across some pricing information at Valueit about Tenerife. Their report takes into account 8,000 properties versus the 2,000 we have in Tenerife on Kyero.com.

That represents about 40% of 2006 property transactions (probably even more because the Valueit report focuses on the island of Tenerife and the Ministry of Housing stats are for the group of Islands which include Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro.

If you're serious about buying in Tenerife, it's certainly worth checking out tenerife-property-guide.com.

In other news, we launched the french version of Kyero.com yesterday and over the past week we added more useful links to property results pages.

Take a look at this results page for Almuñecar. On the left-hand-side under the map you'll see a 'Nearby Towns' section which shows the 10 closest towns to Almuñecar (where there are properties available on Kyero.com).

We do this kind of thing now for every town in Spain - hopefully to help you discover more properties based on the locations you're already familiar with.

When you're browsing by region, province and costa we now show similar links to help you explore the full range of properties available.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com

A VAST Las Vegas-style casino and theme park complex is to be built in a Spanish desert after the regional government in Aragon approved the £12.2 billion project last week.

The casino “city”, to be built on 5,000 acres over the next decade in eastern Spain, will include 32 hotels, five theme parks and, in a Las Vegas touch, may even feature “wedding chapels” to encourage honeymoon tourism. Plans also include a stadium and a conference centre. This being Spain, a bullring is envisaged, too.

One of the theme parks is to be called Spyland, where the world of James Bond will be the dominant motif. Backers plan to invite Daniel Craig and Eva Green, stars of Casino Royale, the latest Bond film, to bring a touch of glamour to the project.

“We intend to approach the owners of the Bond movies to see if we can use James Bond in Spyland,” said Didier Rancher, a French entrepreneur whose company is part of the consortium. He and others involved in it hoped that the development would become the largest casino resort in Europe, with at least 12m visitors a year.

For the moment the name of the casino city is simply Gran Escala, meaning large-scale.

The project will be formally unveiled next month. It sounds extraordinarily ambitious, to say the least: the casinos will cover the sweep of history, featuring cavemen croupiers, Roman centurions or courtiers from the time of France’s Louis XIV – not to mention agents of the KGB.

“This is going to be a new version of Las Vegas in Europe,” said a spokesman for Aristocrat Technologies, an Australian gaming company involved in the project. “It’s going to bring lots of jobs. Disneyland Paris will be tiny in comparison.”

A British-based consortium, International Leisure Development, chose the location from three possible sites in Europe because of its relatively low land prices and proximity to Zaragoza airport, an important hub in the low-cost air network.

The beige desert landscape may be reminiscent of Las Vegas but Zaragoza is only a two-hour flight from Stansted airport, near London, and the resort could attract millions of Britons, particularly after plans for a gambling expansion in Britain were placed in doubt by a review that Gordon Brown has ordered into plans for a Manchester “super-casino”.

There are no such inhibitions in Spain, where gambling is hugely popular and slot machines can be found in every bar. Spanish politicians have welcomed the casinos for the money and jobs they will bring.

Marcelino Iglesias, the socialist president of Aragon, estimated the casinos would create 30,000 new jobs. “The project is important for the whole community,” he said.

Next year Zaragoza, which even without a casino city is a tourist destination, will host Expo 2008, a world fair with an ecological theme that has attracted contributions from 95 countries. Millions have been ploughed into a high-speed rail link from Madrid to Zaragoza.

Even so the casino project is expected to run into strong objections from environmentalists, whatever organisers say about their determination to leave the pristine surrounding landscape unscathed.

Adolfo Barrena, a left-wing deputy in the opposition, is to fight the development. “Once again we are seeing that the local government is on the side of private developers instead of the needs of local people,” he said.

Planners are undeterred, however, and are confident of attracting a full house.

Full story from timesonline.co.uk

José Fernández Pérez is the head of the Coasts Authority in the Ministry for the Environment. His department recently commissioned a report into coastal planning from Punta Carnero in the province of Cadiz to Almería, carried out by the Alatec Consultancy, in which over-building on the Malaga coastline is analysed. From his office in Madrid, Fernández Pérez answers some of the questions we all want to ask about this report.

What do you make of the Alatec report, and what do you think of its recommendations for solving the problems of the the Malaga coastline?

I must say that it’s a sincere and very complete document, drawn up with the utmost rigour, and it puts on the table all the problems that affect the Malaga coastline. It will allow us to begin solving these problems, working with the relevant authorities, fundamentally the Junta de Andalucía, to save the future of the coastline.

So what happens now?

We use the information in the document to begin to work on solutions, identifying each problem in turn, seeing who is responsible for it and what means can be used to solve it. We all have to work together on this, in a systematic and gradual way, to ensure that the coastline can be improved.

Can we really be optimistic about it? Can we hope that the Malaga coastline can actually be improved?

Of course it can. It is really not that complicated an issue. We have a good diagnosis of the problems that exist, and know how to tackle them. The Junta de Andalucía is developing an overall urban plan for the areas in question, which is a good way to establish and consolidate communication between the different administrations involved. It is not that expensive a process. We have begun to solve it in time, and most important of all, we have the support of the ordinary people to do something about the situation regarding climate change. If we get to work now, we’ll certainly see vast improvements on the Malaga coastline within the next decade.

One part of the document deals with the recuperation of the concession for the Baños del Carmen and the elimination of the groynes and part of the esplanades at Pedregalejo, El Palo and El Chanquete beach. What do you think of these proposals?

In these areas, as in others, there are existing legal concessions that do not now fit in with an area we are attempting to make more public and in the general interest. In such cases, our policy is to recuperate the concessions first, with the corresponding compensations paid. Besides, there is an esplanade in that part of the city, and other work done that we do not consider to be of sufficient quality, and it is in these cases that we need to carry out a profound transformation to improve overall quality. For that reason, we are currently working on a plan that we will present in the coming months.

Another tricky problem is the future of houses already built on land too near the beaches, as has happened, for example, in El Palo, Pedregalejo and La Araña. What is going to happen to these houses?

The document proposes that these areas be planned all over again, and this will be the opportunity to do it in a rational way, taking the environment into account much more than before.

Can the local inhabitants of these areas be sure their houses will not be knocked down?

Owners of houses built on public land need not worry; we are working to find a reasonable solution for all concerned.

We have much the same situation in areas like Banana Beach in Marbella, the El Castillo area in Manilva, a building belonging to the Unicaja banking group in Arroyo de la Miel and the La Rada Hotel in Estepona. What’s going to happen in these cases?

First let me say that all cases have to be looked into one by one, and in many cases we are already working on a solution. There are also cases in which we are considering moving the buildings in question, because they have been badly located in the first place. They do nothing for the surrounding areas they are in, and given the possible effects of climate change in the future, they will become a risk. We should not close our eyes, therefore, to any possibility. We must search for urban planning solutions in areas we have no direct control over, and these solutions must respect the rights of property owners, ensuring that they will not lose their properties and have them in less vulnerable areas.

With respect to chiringuitos, is the policy going to be to continue moving them from the sand to the esplanades?

That’s the idea. The sand on our beaches should not be filled with large restaurants. We understand that these restaurants are necessary near the beaches, being an essential part of our tourism tradition, and we must keep them. But they should be better located. We have to work closely with the sector to have them moved little by little, so that the product they offer remains the same, although in a different place.

Loss of sand on the beaches is another big environmental problem on the Malaga coastline. What are you doing about it?

We plan to manage it in a more integral way, using the same methods as nature itself, making the most of the existing sand and preventing its loss.

Rationalising the marinas on the coast

José Fernández is fully aware that the demand for pleasure ports along the Malaga coastline is increasing all the time, and new proposals are being presented to meet this demand. He is not very happy about such a situation. “We here in the Coasts Authority agree with the Public Ports of Andalucía Company that this demand must be rationalised, making the best use of existing pleasure ports or amplifying them. If this is done well, there will probably be less need for more ports of this kind,” he says. But if new ones have to be built, he adds, then they should be of the right kind in the right places. He also believes that some ports have been badly built in the wrong places, and it would probably be a good idea to knock them down to re-build somewhere else, or not at all. “They are badly situated and cause more problems than they solve,” he says, “and make no sense at all.” He refused to name the ports in question.

Full story from surinenglish.com

A TAX bill of up to €650 million could be facing thousands of Irish people who own property in Spain. It is estimated that close to 100,000 Irish people own a Spanish property on which local taxes and rates are payable. Up to 50% of these property owners, however, do not pay the required taxes, according to Dublin-based IFG mortgages. Irish names are now beginning to appear on newspapers and local authority websites which is part of a campaign by the Spanish government to name and shame those who have failed to pay taxes.

Paul Connolly of IFG said: “It appears to be only a matter of time before thousands of Irish property owners are faced with significant tax penalties.

“The issue that we are finding is that people don’t realise that they are not tax compliant or that the person who sold them the property was not tax compliant which burdens them with the tax.”

Offenders can be investigated for the last four years of tax returns and authorities can penalise people up to 300% of the liability. IFG estimates that on a €300,000 property, tax could amount to €1,000 a year.

If this bill is left unpaid they said the bill can hit up to €13,000 over four years. In severe cases if people still have not paid their property taxes, the property can be seized.

In Spain, tax is also payable on rental value even if it is not rented out. Irish people thinking of purchasing a property in Spain have been warned that if the previous owner failed to pay local tax, the purchaser is liable to cover this cost.

“Buyers should always seek independent legal advice as some Irish investors may not even know that they are not tax compliant due to unfamiliarity with legal and tax systems,” said Mr Connolly.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said 78,000 Irish people are registered as living in Spain but the figure could be higher as there are no obligations to register with embassy staff.

IFG estimates that 100,000 Irish people own properties in Spain but neither the Central Statistics Office nor the Revenue Commissioners have figures on Irish-owned properties in Spain.

Earlier this week the Irish Examiner reported that Revenue officials are focusing on Spain in particular, where they believe a large number of tax dodgers have invested in property.

Full story from irishexaminer.com

Recent reports on the effect of global warming on Spain's coastline are blamed for falling property prices in Murcia.

Earlier this month, Greenpeace released a book of photographs, Photoclima: Imágenes de un futuro afectado por el cambio climático, showing the effect of global warming on Spain's environment. Among the most dramatic images were those showing how rises in sea level would lead to the strip of land separating Murcia's Mar Menor from the Mediterranean, La Manga, being completely submerged by 2050.

Now Spanish estate agents are reporting that property prices on La Manga have almost halved since this time last year, falling from 4,000 euros per square metre to 2,300 and several have pointed out that buyers who've been deterred from purchasing on La Manga have been buying elsewhere on the coast, in places that would also be threatened by flooding should the sea rise by as much as Greenpeace predicts. (Note that La Manga Club is not actually on the La Manga strip.)

Other images in the book included a dried-up river Ebro, which would lead to the loss of the Costa del Azahar's citrus-farming industry, and of glacial destruction in the Pyrenees, although these images do not seem to have had such a dramatic effect on property prices in the areas portrayed. The truth is, if the rise in global warming was sufficient to do the damage to La Manga portrayed in the book, not just La Manga but the whole planet would be affected to some degree. Spain's government is taking the possible effects of climate change very seriously, and is proposing a raft of measures to reduce the risk to vulnerable areas, including stopping all building on La Manga.

Full story from homesworldwide.co.uk

That famous Halifax business slogan “Always giving you extra” certainly rings true when it comes to expansion in the Canary Islands.

In a fast-growing market, Fuerteventura welcomed the first Banco Halifax Hispania in September and now Fanabé on Tenerife has become the second prestigious location. Further branches are to follow, including in Arona, as the Halifax strives to achieves its aim of innovation and competitiveness. The Halifax opened its first Spanish branch in Madrid in 1993 and has identified the Canaries as a place it has just got to be.

You can now find the distinctive blue Halifax cross at a smart and spacious new office on the top floor of the Central Commercial Fañabé Plaza. The staff are multi-lingual, speaking Spanish, English, German and some French with branch manager Cristina Olmos in charge. The office is bright and air-conditioned with stunning decor and the lay-out allows for privacy when discussing personal financial details. British people will be particularly delighted to welcome the Halifax as it is a well-trusted name and you will find all the same services as offered at home on the high street. The range of high-quality products are tailored mainly to the UK market, directed at non-residents and residents alike.

The team at Fañabé prides itself on being welcoming and professional and will take time to sit down with you and explain all the products and services available. These include an opening promotion which offers up until December 31, 2007 no fee for arranging new non-residents’ mortgages and no fee for non-residents when they switch their current mortgage to the Halifax.

One very attractive offer is that if you already have a Halifax or Bank of Scotland account in the UK and need to transfer money from Britain to Spain or vice versa, there will be no charge. This represents a considerable saving, especially if you do such transactions on a regular basis. For just 25 euros a year, you can become a member of the Halifax Club which has many benefits. The account includes debit cards, interest, setting up direct debits free of charge and 24.7 telephone banking. The Club also provides you with a helping hand, ranging from dealing with bureaucratic paperwork to fitting a window or delivering flowers. Just one telephone call gives you access to a world of services and all in your own language.

Deposit accounts at the Halifax offer high interest rates of up to 4.75 APR and you might like to consider a new mortgage or mortgage switch incorporating up to 15 years of interest only payments. This option is available for residents and non-residents and could help to reduce your monthly payments if you are feeling the pinch. You may even be able to release some equity from your home. Mortgage terms are available up to a term of 40 years and for customers of up to 80 years of age. Buying a property in Spain can seem quite daunting for a first-timer and Halifax is able to provide all sorts of expert help and advice and has some excellent booklets.

The Halifax also offers insurance for your home and car and life assurance as well as pension plans.

Full story from tenerifenews.com

What can I say? I had never been to Las Vegas before and Kyero.com being nominated for Best International Property Portal seemed the ideal excuse to make the trip

It wasn't that I doubted the quality of our web site in any way, but I was convinced that we wouldn't win - simply because the competition was so strong.

Rightmove.co.uk is the UK's largest property portal, a publicly traded company currently valued in excess of half a billion pounds. Daft.ie is it's equivalent in Ireland.

There were a couple of 'other' portals which had also been nominated but I was fairly confident that we could 'take' them!

So, on my way to the awards in my rented tuxedo, I was mentally preparing myself to congratulate the winners and congratulate ourselves for having participated at such a high level.

When Kyero.com was announced as the outright winner (there were no 'runner-up' awards), there was a moment when we just stared at each other across the table, wondering whether we'd all heard correctly.

Eventually, the adrenalin kicked-in and we got to our feet and accepted the award. As I write this, there's still something unreal about Kyero.com being voted Best International Property Portal - there is no higher industry award.

Accepting the award, I was literally speechless but I would have liked to have said this:

Thank you to our visitors and subscribers. Without you, our web site would be an academic exercise, operating in a vacuum.

Thank you to our advertisers. I appreciate your courage and foresight by continuing to invest in online advertising in a challenging market.

Thank you to the staff of Kyero.com. Your skill, integrity and good-humour have enabled us to succeed at a world-class level.

I can't tell you how proud I am to be associated with Kyero.com - and for it to have been voted as the best of the best by an independent panel of industry figures.

Rather than rest on our laurels though, this will undoubtedly spur Kyero.com to greater achievement. We're already thinking about what we need to do to retain the crown in 2008.

I have a feeling that the level of competition will be even hotter next year - and that's good news for every one involved in the overseas property industry.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com

The golden swathe of sand stretched for miles into the hazy horizon and here and there little groups of sunbathers basked beneath the brilliant blue sky. I had to pinch myself to remember that this really was summer time in the south of Spain! Around the corner of the coastline, on the Costa del Sol, the beaches would be stuffed with sweltering bodies. But here in Conil de la Frontera, on the largely undiscovered Costa de la Luz, my family had found tranquillity. Admittedly the waves rolling dauntingly towards us were of the Atlantic ocean, not the tame efforts of the Mediterranean, but the marvellous beaches of this coast have something for everyone.

Fronting Conil is the Playa de Los Bateles, a family beach scattered with little wooden cafes and watched over by lifeguards.

Further north, you find more sheltered coves. Head south and you find the surfers and discover a topless and nudist area - although we resisted baring all!

Conil is one of Andalucia's 'pueblos blancos' or white towns, all of its buildings being painted white. Until recently, it was just a small, traditional fishing community.

These days, with the assets of its beaches and its pleasant architecture, including a 14th-century tower, the town is waking up to tourism. But there are none of the concrete, high-rise developments that have scarred other parts of the Spanish coastline.

For the moment at least, it's busy for just six weeks of the year, from mid July until the end of August. And even then, most of the town's visitors are Spaniards, so the resort loses none of its traditional flavour.

Full story from roundtownnews.co.uk

Regional government plans to spend 30 million Euros between now and 2010 on restoring historic town centres. Anyone lookinb to buy a property in Spain to renovate may be interested to find out how many affordable, run-down buildings there are in the country's north-west.

Now Galicia's junta (or xunta, as it's spelled locally) is splitting a large amount of cash between the region's four provinces to pay for the restoration and refurbishment of 1,100 properties. For example, in Lugo's Sagrado Corazón district, 250 properties will be restored at a cost of 5,400,000 Euros. Other funds will go toward improving housing stock in other parts of Galicia, and towards restoring buildings in historic town centres. As well as boosting local building trades, the regional government is keen to see more use made of existing properties rather than release green land for building.

It's still possible to buy a property for restoration in Galicia for under 30,000 Euros. Note that many areas have strict regulations on what you can do with a restoration property, so don't buy blindly assuming you'll be allowed to extend a property, enlarge windows and so on. Check what the municipality's rules are before putting down any money.

Full story from homesworldwide.co.uk

Kyero.com has been voted Best International Property Portal 2007.

Against all odds and facing fierce competition from industry heavyweights, Rightmove.co.uk and Daft.ie, plus two other country-specific portals, Kyero.com clinched the accolade at the International Property Awards Gala dinner hosted at the prestigious Bellagio hotel, Las Vegas.

Martin Dell, MD of Kyero.com commented "In all honesty, my greatest hope for Kyero.com was to be runner-up to Rightmove.co.uk or Daft.ie. Coming second or third to either of these portals would have been an honour. I was, quite literally, speechless when I heard that Kyero.com had won the category outright."

"It's a massive tribute to the Kyero.com team - from operations to sales and from programming to design - I'm delighted and honoured to have been part of this award-winning initiative."

Kyero.com will celebrate this outstanding world-class achievement with advertising estate agents and developers with a series of exciting promotions during the next few months.

Fuelled by this accolade, the Kyero.com will focus on the continued development and relentless improvement of the site and it's underlying technologies in the remainder of 2007 and beyond.

Visitors will enjoy never-seen-before search features, and more visitors speaking more languages in more countries will benefit from Kyero.com technology powering their favourite property portals.

AT the end of October, Madrid made an announcement of a radical change in the policy that has seen Spain’s coast become saturated in concrete.

Since the 1960s – when international tourism in Spain gained huge popularity – hotels, apartment blocks and homes went up at an alarming rate to satisfy the demand of the millions of visitors who come to the country each year. Coastal construction has not slowed in the intervening 40 years with 260,000 hectares of littoral replaced by bricks, mortar and glass between 2000 and 2005, according to figures released by government think tank the Observatory for Sustainability in Spain.

In its manifesto for change - called the Strategy for Coastal Sustainability - the government wants to rid 800 kilometres of coast of constructions illegally erected after the Coast Law of 1988. This means thousands of homes, hotels, plastic greenhouses and even swimming pools built on Spain’s sands and 100 metres inland face demolition.

At the moment, this move is nothing more than a statement of intent, as the government needs the support of town halls and authorities in Spain’s coastal regions to push the measure through – something that is easier said than done when you consider the nature of politics in Spain. Traditionally, the opposition opposes everything the government says and does. Today, the socialists are in charge and the conservatives are in the shadows. However, the conservatives run many of the town halls, whose backing Madrid needs for this to be a success.

Full story from theolivepress.es

Holidaymakers looking for package holidays to Spain are opting for the Canaries – rental property owners, take note!

No matter what anyone tells you, any expat who lives in Spain will tell you it's not sun, sun, sun on the mainland all winter, and the further inland you get from the Mediterranean coast, the greater the likelihood of it being a bit chilly. The only genuine year-round sunshine in Spain is to be found in the Canaries, and holidaymakers are clearly aware of this fact as some recent statistics shows that in the week starting 22 October 2007, four out of the top five searches for package holidays to Spain were looking for Canary Island breaks. Gran Canaria was most popular, followed by Tenerife. Mainland Spain makes a showing at number three with searches for the Costa Blanca, but then Lanzarote and Fuerteventura rounded out the top five.

These figures should be of interest to anyone thinking of buying a rental property in Spain. While mainland Spain is by far the most popular location for holidaymakers during the summer months and you can earn a good income during peak season, if you're looking for year-round rentals the Canaries are definitely worth considering. As well as holidaymakers going for a week or two, you'll also be able to cater to elderly people keen to escape the British climate for a couple of months.

Story from homesworldwide.co.uk

If you are buying a house in Spain you will need to pay for it in Euros and there are a number of different ways of doing this. You can purchase Euros through your local bank in the UK, which, although is an easy option, may not be the most cost effective. You need to compare exchange rates and fees, and your local bank is not always the most competitive. Another way of purchasing Euros is through a currency broker, whose business is to buy and sell foreign currencies. There are a number of options to consider when purchasing foreign currency and outlined below are few of the main types of transactions available. Spot Contract - Typically when purchasing a property in Spain you will be required to pay a deposit fairly quickly or, for full payment if the funds to pay for the transaction are available. In this situation a Spot Contract is usual. This is when you purchase a currency at the prevailing exchange rate at the time of the transaction. So you ring your broker, he gives you a rate, and if you are happy with this you purchase the currency. You will normally be given a couple of days to pay for this transaction.

Forward Currency Contract - If you are buying an off-plan property that won't be completed immediately, it is possible to fix the exchange rate so that you know exactly what the rate will be when it comes to the time of completion. This can be fixed for up to two years or more ahead. You will normally need to pay a deposit to secure a forward rate. Fluctuations in the market can make a big difference in the price you pay when completing a sale. The following is an example of when this type of contract is useful: You decide to buy an off-plan property for €300,000 on 1st February 2007. At today's exchange rate, this would cost you something like £205,000 using the exchange rate at 1st February 2007. Let's just say you need to make staged payments over the next 18 months. If you used a forward currency contract, the price you would end up paying for you property would remain at £205,000. If using a spot contract you could find that with fluctuating currency rates, you could end up paying more or less than £205,000, so you have to weigh up the risk. This is fine if you end up paying less but not so great if you have to pay more. Forward currency is an excellent way of eliminating this type of risk.

Time-Option Forward Contracts allow greater flexibility in paying. For example, a developer may give you a date of March 2008 as a completion date, but as typically happens in Spain, completion is delayed and your property is not completed on time. A dealer may recommend that you set a date for your forward contract of July 2008, leaving you free to either complete the purchase at any time before July 2008. A Limit Order allows you to set a rate at which you would like to exchange your currency. For example, you ring your dealer and say that you would like to exchange £100,000 at a rate of 1.49. The broker would then monitor the market on your behalf and if that rate could be achieved, would purchase the currency on your behalf. This is important for if you want to exchange a large amount where small fluctuations could have huge implications.

Watch out for hidden charges that could include:

· A sending fee - your bank/broker in the UK may charge you a transfer fee to send money to a Spanish bank. · Receiving fee - the receiving bank in Spain may charge you a fee for receiving money from the UK and these can be quite costly. · If you find a bank/broker who doesn't charge extra fees, you may find that you are not getting such a competitive rate of exchange.

Story from roundtownnews.co.uk

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 Balearic islands are to freeze all construction along the most delicate parts of coastlines and around the islands' capitals, which have been blighted by property developments since mass tourism first arrived in Spain in the 60s. The plan, set to be announced tomorrow, will come into force immediately in an effort to save some of the most beautiful coastlines on the islands of Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca, from further development.

Although the full details of the plan, revealed yesterday in El Pais newspaper have not yet been announced, it is understood that it will place a moratorium on development in one of Mallorca's largest untouched bays, and in urban marshlands in Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca, where construction work was set to begin. Rural land around the newly constructed Son Espases hospital in Palma, located near a medieval monastery, will also be saved.

During this moratorium the parliament of the Balearic islands will redefine these areas as protected land, meaning that they cannot be built on in the future. There will also be parallel compensation negotiations with landowners and property developers. The socialist president of the Balearic islands, Francesc Antich, said: "We cannot mistreat our natural resources, damage the coastline and allow for a disproportionate growth in residential properties."

The move has been given a cautious welcome by environmental groups. María José Caballero, from Greenpeace, said: "It's very positive and very necessary. What you have to realise is that the islands are going to be the first places to suffer the effects of climate change. Whatever can be done to prevent further development on the coasts will give some kind of guarantee for the future."

Tourism has long been a vital economic resource for the Balearic islands, bringing in hundreds of thousands of tourists and millions of euros each year. The tide has turned against tourism recently, as Spaniards have begun to criticise the detrimental effect of unfettered development on their coastlines. There has also been concern over the kind of tourism that high-rise hotels and densely packed apartment blocs attract. An estimated one million Britons now live in Spain, which, in a country of 45 million, has placed a great strain on resources.

Environmental campaigners have warned that one third of Spain risks being turned into desert, as property developments and tourism projects - particularly the golf courses that attract so many British tourists - consume much-needed water. The WWF describes the hundreds of golf courses around the Mediterranean as an environmental hazard, with each one using about one million cubic metres of water per hectare per year - the same as a town of 12,000 people.

With general elections set for next spring, tourism and its impact on the environment looks set to be a key campaigning issue. Last week, the Spanish government launched an initiative to pull down illegally built homes, chalets and hotels along 500 miles of coastline. Under Spanish law, beaches are considered public property and construction is banned within 100 metres of the coast, but the law is often flouted by construction companies.

Full story from The Guardian

According to research by MRI Overseas Property, 24 million people Britons would consider buying an overseas holiday home but just 15% would consider letting this property for rental income which means they are missing out on potential rental revenue from their holiday home.

Nearly 30% of overseas property owners only visit their property twice a year, MRI said these people might not maximise their investment if they don’t have plans to rent out the property for the remainder of the year.

MRI added that the average monthly rental is currently £800 so many overseas homeowners could potentially be missing out on earning thousands of pounds in rental income and now is a good time to begin letting a property abroad added the company.

Olivia Mullan, head of rentals for MRI, said as the property market reaches maximum value levels in the UK, an increasing amount of British people are looking abroad to get a solid return on their investment and holiday homes can provide the perfect solution due to a constant demand for accommodation by British holidaymakers.

Ms Mullan added that with the possibility of further interest rate rises and the current economic climate here in the UK, seasoned buy-to-let experts are beginning to look further afield. 19% of British landlords have said if interest rates reach 6%, they will consider buying property overseas for a better return on their investment.

A recent study by NatWest International discovered that a quarter of a million people from the UK owned a foreign property, mainly in European countries such as France and Spain.

Full story from homemove.co.uk

If surveys show 40 percent of the UK adult population would like to make an overseas property investment, why have only four percent actually done it?

This is one of the questions which Richard Brady of Olive Tree International hopes to find an answer to. He said: “Buyers looking to invest abroad are often daunted by the wide choice, particularly as the world has opened up so rapidly in the last five years.

“ With pensions floundering and plenty of up-beat articles in the press extolling the virtues of buying overseas it seems the obvious place in which to invest but of course many are concerned about adverse press such as land grab and therefore although opinion polls show a large number of UK citizens wanting to buy abroad only a small percentage actually purchase overseas.”

Brady says the majority of people who take the overseas investment plunge can benefit enormously. He cites diverse examples such as Bahrain where properties have risen 35 percent in the last five years, Spain, despite recent bad press, still has an annual growth rate of around 20 percent and Turkey which has seen growth rates of around 20 percent pa.

Following the opening up of many Eastern European countries and old favourites such as Portugal and Italy, the choice can be confusing.

This is why choosing the right agent is paramount; says Brady who advises you pick one that belongs to an associated body such as The Association of International Property Professionals AIPP, or the National Association of Estate Agents incorporating the Federation of Overseas Property Developers, Agents and Consultants, or FOPDAC. “Where you see the term ‘due diligence’, remember that this could be subjective, particularly if the ‘diligence’ is intimately linked to the developments because they are the builders or the builders agents”, warns Brady. “If your agent is in the pocket of the developer you run a great risk of them not being impartial.”

Most people start their overseas search via the web site but just typing in ‘overseas property agent’ can result in an inordinate amount of companies – Yahoo brought up 8.3m sites in a recent test.

Brady offers the following advice. Read the web sites carefully. ‘Stunning scenery’ needs to be backed up with facts and figures. You need to gain as much information as possible about any given development.

Full story from fly-2let.co.uk

10,000 highly-qualified workers needed for high-tech industries in Spain – Spanish-speaking telecoms and IT experts, get ready to pack your bags!

Spain is currently experiencing a shortage of experienced and highly-qualified workers in many high-tech fields, to the point where some commentators believe the country will need to bring in 10,000 immigrant workers to fill the employment gap. If you've got the relevant qualifications and have been working in your field for some time, the prospect of being able to continue your work in Spain may be all you need to induce you to consider relocating.

One thing to bear in mind is that you won't find the majority of available jobs on the costas. Madrid and Barcelona are the main two locations for this sort of employment, although other well-populated industrial centres such as the Basque Country will also offer employment opportunities. Wages are generally lower in Spain, but the cost of living is also less. Speaking Spanish will be a great advantage, and as fewer young Spaniards are studying for technical degrees, you can give yourself a year or two to learn the language, safe in the knowledge that the job market won't be flooded with recent graduates when you're ready to start looking for work.

Full story from homesworldwide.co.uk

Holidaymakers are at risk of costly mistakes at overseas ATMs because of the growing use of a practice known as "dynamic currency conversion".

The confusing choice over whether to withdraw currency at your own bank's exchange rate or at an alternative rate offered by the company that owns the overseas ATM is the latest potential financial pitfall for cardholders abroad, on top of expensive "cash handling fees" of as much as 2% and currency "loading" fees of 2.75%.

Nationwide building society says it has noticed an 85% year-on-year increase in customers using overseas cash machines that offer a choice of exchange rates. Most of this has been in Spain, it adds, where Santander - the giant Spanish bank that owns Abbey - has now rolled out 4,500 ATMs offering the new service.

This week, Travelex announced the launch of a DCC service with ATMs in the US that will target prime tourist areas in Manhattan, Miami and Los Angeles, and said it was also in talks with a number of banks in mainland Europe. It already owns more than 300 such cash machines in Australia.

Most Britons' experience of dynamic currency conversion has so far been limited to restaurants and hotels when, instead of paying the bill with plastic at your bank's foreign exchange rate, staff give you the choice of a rate offered by the local retailer but converted into pounds sterling instead.

The idea behind it is greater consumer choice - you see exactly how much your current account will be debited in the UK at the local retailer's rate rather than blindly accepting your own bank's exchange deal, and the possibility of an exchange rate in your favour.

However, unless you carry a pocket calculator everywhere you go, it's almost impossible to know which deal is best, and many unsuspecting people end up paying over the odds.

Now that DCC has spread to overseas cash machines, there is a risk that more Britons will be left out of pocket, and the difference might vary from a few pence to several pounds for each withdrawal. Depending on how much you take out, it could easily add up to a tidy sum over a holiday or extended period of travel.

The same principle applies: consumers must choose between paying for currency at a foreign exchange rate set by their own bank or at a rate - displayed on-screen - offered by the bank or currency provider that owns the overseas ATM.

But in order to work out the best deal, users need to be able to keep a number of key statistics in their head and make calculations.

"If you're with a standard high street bank, you would have to know what your own foreign exchange rate is, and what your bank's ATM mark-up is [usually 2%], and compare this with the on-screen rate," says Dominic Lindley, policy adviser at consumer body Which?

"We've raised this with Visa and MasterCard. It's extremely difficult to work out if your bank or the DCC [option] is best."

This is a tall order for most people, let alone Britons relaxing on holiday who simply want to be able to use an ATM to get their cash.

It's the latest financial challenge to Britons who can end up spending a fortune just to use their debit and credit cards overseas.

Expensive extra fees for taking money from overseas machines already include a currency conversion fee - 2.75% of the sum being withdrawn at most banks but as high as 2.99% with Lloyds TSB - as well as a transaction handling charge that is at least £1.50 or 1% to 2% of the sum withdrawn, according to financial data analyst Moneyfacts. "Our advice is, if in doubt at the ATM, withdraw currency at your own bank's exchange rate," Mr Lindley says. Ideally, he adds, you should take a Nationwide debit card or post office credit card with you.

The Office of Fair Trading says that, as part of its overall report into free banking due to be published at the end of next month, it is also looking at the transparency of such fees. Visa and Mastercard say they monitor the system to make sure that consumers are given the DCC option in a clear manner.

Dynamic currency conversion at ATMs has begun to spread after a 12-month pilot in continental Europe that ended last year and was deemed a success. Although the roll-out on the continent is so far largely confined to Santander, other banks are monitoring the situation to see if it becomes accepted by the general public.

Full story from guardian.co.uk

Last week we updated our Spanish house price index and posted an article comparing our statistics to those from the Spanish Ministry of Housing. The whole price index section also got a bit of a makeover to make it easier to find price-related articles.

If you feel like having a laugh, read our first news story entitled More Building Land Needed.

A spokesman for G14 - representing 14 of the largest property developers in Spain - claims that what's needed in Spain is more land for more building. I can see how that might benefit the members of G14 - but not Spain's economy or it's property market.

This story reminded me how the news circulating in Spain differs vastly from the perspective 'outsiders' have of what's going on within the country.

To use a Formula 1 example, within Spain, Lewis Hamilton was almost universally portrayed as the sly back-stabber and Fernando Alonso, the hard-done-by saint. Precisely the opposite perspective of the UK press.

To use a property-related example, when speaking to Spanish friends from Madrid last week about the land-grab laws in Valencia - they had never heard of there being a problem at all - nothing.

I know that the UK press tends to make a mountain out of a molehill in this respect but there is a real problem in Valencia - and it affects Spanish as well as foreign property buyers - yet it had never make the headlines in Madrid.

Just like the comments from the G14 spokesman, we try to present a range of perspectives on the Kyero news page so you have access to different points of view. We're sometimes criticised for painting an overly-optimistic or an overly-pessimistic view of the Spanish property market - in roughly equal measure. I guess that means we're successfully walking the line between both extremes - what do you think?

Next week, I'm off to Las Vegas to attend the 2007 Realtors Conference and see how we get on at the International Property Awards on the 16th of November. Kyero.com is up against RightMove and Daft for the 'Best International Property Portal' award. I'll let you know how we get on but I won't be holding my breath against such strong competition. Whatever happens we feel quite proud to be rubbing shoulders with the big boys of the industry.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com

The big Spanish property companies are all agreed on one thing: if a lot more land is not made available for building in the immediate future, the price of housing will rise sharply over the coming two years. This was the message in the G-14 meeting last week, when a property sector lobby made up of the 14 biggest property companies in the country gathered to discuss the future of their sector. They also warned the public administrations that urban planning paperwork is stifling the industry, and it needs to be simplified. The president of the group, who also heads the Martinsa-Fadesa company, Fernando Martín, assured his listeners that neither property prices not interest rates will fall in the immediate future.

Martín criticised the ‘voices of alarm,’ as he put it, which are creating unnecessary worry with respect to property prices in Spain. He was unhappy about the image of the industry in this country, he said, adding that “it does not correspond with its weight in the economy.” He recognised, nevertheless, that many companies are unable to present a proper image to society at large. This was the reason the G-14 group was established in the first place, he said.

The property group spokesman rejected outright that property companies plan to drop house prices in the near future, adding that it is much the same paying 170,000 as 200,000 euros for an apartment. As far as the G-14 is concerned, he added, the important thing is that building land is made more easily available. “It takes an average of six years to have land zoned for building in Spain, while in Mexico or Morocco, it takes no more than a year and a half.”

Rafael Santamaría, president of the Reyal-Urbis company, spoke of other fears in the sector. Referring to old houses, he expressed a view contrary to that of Martín. According to him, those people who bought houses in the past as investment may be encouraged, through fear of falling prices, to put them on the market at the same time, and this would lead to a sharp drop in prices.

Also demanding that the bureaucratic process be simplified, Martín called for houses of 40 or 50 square metres to be allowed by the public administrations, or even that houses already built be divided into smaller units that purchasers could afford. He accepted that sales have slowed down, but denied any crisis in the industry, adding that in the first nine months of the year, the initiation of house building by his group had fallen by 60 per cent, while visits to show houses had fallen by 45 per cent.

In spite of his desire to send a tranquillising message, Martín said that if this trend continues, and reminding us that the building industry accounts for 25 per cent of overall employment, then the Spanish economy will be in serious trouble. He said that for every house not built, an average of three jobs are lost, mainly by immigrant workers. Such a scenario, he added, could result in the loss of thousands of jobs, and lead to social disturbance. On the future of the industry, Martín said that we would see more smaller companies being taken over by bigger ones.

Full story from surinenglish.com

Research from NatWest Bank has revealed that holidays designed to give Brits a relaxing break from their busy working lives can actual cause more stress. Millions of Brits returning home exhausted by efforts of organising a holiday, finding a accommodation, and dealing with the cost of the holiday.

As a result, the bank states that three in ten people are considering buying a property abroad, and a quarter of them are doing so just to avoid the stresses and strains of the annual family holiday.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more than a quarter of a million Brits currently own a foreign property, meaning the trauma and cost of holiday arrangements could become a thing of the past.

Indeed, a third of current and potential overseas homeowners believe that owning a holiday home will make family breaks more affordable and a quarter feel it would reduce the sheer stress of arranging holidays.

This is particularly true in countries where holiday homes are already an important part of the property market, such as Spain, as it means that developers and estate agents are used to dealing with British investors.

Mike Freer, Head of Business Development at NatWest International Personal Banking, says, “Holidays should be fun and relaxing but sadly this isn’t always the case. The hassle and expense of arranging holidays can be hugely traumatic - from deciding where to go and remembering to pack everything but the kitchen sink, yet keeping under the new airline luggage weight restrictions. And the holiday itself can be spoiled by poor accommodation, meaning that Brits end up needing another holiday when they return!”

However, as three in every ten people plan to return to the same destination each year, it makes sense to consider buying a property there.

Mike Freer says, “Buying a holiday home abroad is increasingly becoming the norm for British families. Spain continues to top the tables as the most popular overseas hotspot. While the upfront purchase cost is a huge financial commitment, the long-term benefits of holiday homes can be fantastic as they provide great investment potential, a wonderful lifestyle and a permanent escape from the hassle and expense of holiday arrangements. A holiday home can literally pay for itself.”

Story from homesworldwide.co.uk

Spain's sunny climate and welcoming people has attracted more immigrants than any other country in Europe. With high levels of British people relocating to Spain annually, it’s not surprising that the country’s appeal has resulted in it being the European country with the most immigrants.

Foreign residents now comprise almost ten per cent of the total population, adding up to 4.48 million out of a total of 14.12 million people. The ratio is now higher than France, Germany or Britain. The figures also show that seven out of every ten people who move to Spain fall in love with the country so much that they decide to stay.

“There are obvious reasons why Spain is so popular,” says Ian Smith, head of European operations for Halifax. "The climate is ideal, the country openly welcomes English speakers and the emergence of low-cost flights has made travelling to Spain so cheap."

The influx of newcomers to the country has also contributed to Spain’s consistently improving economy, with immigrants estimated to account for 4.5 per cent of the GDP.

While retirees often do this by employing local builders and paying for other services, younger expats boost an area’s revenue by opening new businesses and creating competition. In addition they have also contributed to a recovery in Spain’s diminishing birth rate.

The Etnia publishing group, who presents the annual immigration study, predicts that, by 2025, 30 per cent of Spain’s residents will either have been born elsewhere, or will be the children of immigrants, leading to an increasingly multicultural population.

Story from homesworldwide.co.uk

Spanish environmental group WWF/Adena claims poor urban planning exacerbated the damage caused by massive rainfall. This Autumn's seen some appalling flooding happening in Spain. Rather than being caused by prolonged heavy rain like the floods that occurred in Britain earlier this year, intense downpours were to blame. Now WWF/Adena is claiming that the effects of the rain were made worse by poor town planning in the Alicante region.

During the building boom of the past decade or so, hundreds of thousands of houses have been constructed on land that would once have soaked away some of the excess water. Others have been built in the dry river beds that traditionally carry away the water in the event of a heavy downpour - in short, they've been built precisely in the path of floodwater, meaning that those properties get flooded, and with no channel to pass through the water damages other homes and businesses too.

WWF/Adena also claims that the regional government of Valencia is aware of the problems. Some councils, however, are already taking steps to ensure that future heavy rain does not cause as much damage to their localities. According to Spanish-language daily newspaper El Pais, the Mayor of Calpe, Luis Serna, has announced plans to clear the dry river beds and improve water drainage on some streets. Calpe suffered particularly badly from the flooding, with the repairs to its promenade and beach being estimated to cost 6 million Euros alone, so the council is keen to prevent similar damage occurring in future.

On a similar note, The Olive Press has reported that the Guardia Civil has stated that the plastic greenhouses covering miles of land in Almeria and Granada are placing nine municipalities at risk of flooding. Again, man-made structures are preventing rain water from soaking into the land, so the water can only run across the land to the sea.

Story from homesworldwide.co.uk

Is any property below €50,000 a cheap Spanish property? Are cheap Spanish properties only to be found at auction or as bank repossessions? How much below market value does a Spanish property need to be to be considered cheap?

Continue reading: What IS cheap Spanish property?