08 | INDUSTRY
NEWS By Geoff Hadwick Thousands of Spanish holiday home
properties are unsellable at current prices says a new report from Spanish bank Bankinter. And change is only likely to happen if there is a “trickle- down” effect from the top end of the market, creating a greater sense of confi dence, say local agents. The bank believes that at least 30%
of the 700,000 homes currently sitting empty will never sell at current prices. It thinks that the banks which have repossessed them should halve their asking prices to get things moving. If you assume that the average house
price is €150,000, this means a €30 billion problem says Bankinter, which does not foresee the market recovering until 2014, by which point prices will have fallen by at least another 6%. “In the next few quarters property
prices need to keep adjusting so that the stock can be absorbed, although it will happen very slowly,” Bankinter told OPP. It predicts that there will be only 200,000 new home sales in Spain this year, and the same again next year. “To put this data in recent context, it’s
On the rocks | The Spanish market is facing stagnation without a trickle-down eff ect
the lowest level in the last eight years and represents a fall of 55% compared to 2007, when record 412,000 homes were sold,” says the bank. The glut is no longer growing, add
the bankers. But, “thanks to a lack of demand, rising unemployment, the credit crunch and a new recession, it isn’t shrinking either.” Stephen Dight, managing director of Mallorca Sotheby’s International Realty,
told OPP that “in 2012 we expect a top down recovery, that is to say continual improvement in the top quality end of the market with a trickledown effect spreading to the lower priced property.” The image of the Spanish market
could improve too. “I also expect the European printed press and television media to bring closure to their antagonistic approach to Spanish property, an approach that has been very
www.opp.org.uk | JANUARY 2012 Spain in need of ‘trickle-down’ effect
scattergun, painting all of Spain in a bad light regardless of quality or region,” Dight told OPP. “There is a vast disparity between someone buying a makeshift villa without the advice of a lawyer in Valencia and an informed buyer purchasing a luxury mansion in Mallorca. You simply can’t compare.” “The Spanish Government is
also taking positive steps to restore confi dence in its property market, to stimulate growth, whereas before it at best ignored problems or at worst positively damaged the market with inconsistent and questionable practices. These practices are fi rmly in the past.” “I don’t have a crystal ball, but
every recession is cyclical and, as it comes to its inevitable end, the British will return in numbers, German buyers will return in droves and confidence will be restored.” However, a number of large
Spanish agencies and consultancies have all told OPP that they are waiting for the banks to make a concerted effort to discount their repossessed stock before the market really starts to move.
US leapfrogs Spain as Brits’ top destination
The United States has overtaken Spain has the most popular destination for UK overseas property buyers according to new fi gures from portal
TheMoveChannel.com. The website’s ‘Top of the Props’
report for November saw the US surge ahead of the traditional top dog Spain with a 7.01% increase in the level of enquiries. Spain’s enquiries by contrast fell
QSD SPAIN RECORD
SPANISH developer QSD International Group has just had its best November sales fi gures for 3 years, says sales director Andrew Barclay Guy, mainly as a result of the decision by the Spanish government to reduce VAT on new home sales until Dec 31 2011.
by 2.38% from October to November.
TheMoveChannel.com’s managing director Dan Johnson told OPP: “After climbing three places in as many months, the US continues to attract more and more overseas investors.” “Florida remains a popular lifestyle
choice and with US houses the most affordable they have been in 15 years, the troubled Eurozone just can’t compete with the low price of American real
GERMAN BUILDS UP
GERMAN house-building permits have soared to a record this year as investors put their money into bricks and mortar as a hedge against infl ation and the EU’s sovereign debt crisis. The number of permits leapt up 22% in the fi rst nine months of 2011.
estate. It’s no coincidence that the US is the only country to rise above the four familiar European markets.” Brazil also performed strongly in the report, jumping into the top ten. “Brazil is another strong area of
South America, where the economic future seems far less uncertain.”
growth,” added Johnson. “Sports and tourism have boosted international awareness of its real estate developments. As a result, investors are turning away from Europe and heading to North and Top dog | The US is the number one
CANADIANS GO USA
CANADIAN buyers are purchasing more and more homes in Arizona according to local realtors. Susanita De Diego of Coldwell Banker Canada said: “A cottage property in Canada is roughly three times what you pay for a cottage property here in Arizona.”
ISTANBUL RISES
SOME areas of İstanbul have become as attractive as the high-end “marquee addresses” of London and Paris, says Turkey’s Sotheby’s International Realty’s Arman Özver. Özver said İstanbul has the “most historic value” of any European city.
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