This is our 17th Quarterly Report. We have kept it brief and specifically relevant to the locations where the clients of the Survey Spain Network are most active. As part of the research, we have identified a number of wider and national property comments.
The Overall Market – Increasing optimism with the first quarter being better than last year’s.
- Generally, the agents we’ve talked to have been upbeat regarding sales and the future market. They all report that new properties are selling well, but that older, ‘classical’ properties are struggling, and prices continue to drop for those, except in the best locations.
- We have recently been asked to value a property on the beach side of Marbella’s Golden Mile. The purchasers intend to demolish the nearly 1,000 sq m property and build a new style, which illustrates the premium that can be gained for new. However, given that new build licences in Marbella are taking up to 2 years to be granted, due to the continuing planning hiatus, extensive remodelling would appear to be the better course as licences for that are understood to be available within 3 to 6 months.
- As stated in the last few Reports, despite the comments above, we are still concerned at the amount of new construction being carried out, all along the Costa del Sol, with the probability of much of it coming onto the market at approximately the same time.
- There is still a considerable gap in price between the equivalent new and resale properties, which means that most purchasers of new property are going to be finding themselves in immediate negative equity. However, it appears that the presence of new materials and design is sufficient to encourage buyers to succumb to the superior marketing and elect for the new property. They are also being encouraged to view these properties by incentive furniture and other packages and agents encouraged to bring their clients by higher than standard agency fees.
- Along the Costa del Sol, several agents report that they are finding that many older properties are coming onto the market due to families growing and spreading, leaving largely unused the increasingly elderly parents’ holiday or retirement home. The elderly owners prefer to have the money available to live on and are either going back to their countries of origin or renting smaller, ideally single floor homes and thus joining the already crowded rental market.
- The market for inland properties is reported to be beginning to pick up at last. Again, the properties must be exceptionally located and to have no planning or building problems. In addition, increasing relaxation of the Regularisation (DAFO) possibilities for properties built illegally, is making it possible for all the paperwork to be brought up to date and owners able to live or sell with confidence that there will be no further fines or demolitions.
- Two agents have stressed the importance of having all the paperwork up to date, no matter how legal the property is. One agent instanced the situation where the historic title documents gave a size less than one-third of the actual size. It took 6 months and some costs to correct the situation, even though it wasn’t contentious and only the administrative bureaucracy had to be gone through. By that time the potential buyer was long gone and the property was being shunned as a ‘troublesome’ property by agents showing properties in the area. Unfortunately, this is a situation that we have found when valuing a number of mortgaged properties and could delay debt recovery and make it costlier in the event of a bank requiring to liquidate the security.
- Brexit is now less than a year away at 29th March 2019. The reality of the change that is coming and the dashing of hopes of a change of mind by the UK will be increasingly concentrated into this short period. Agents report that whilst there has been a slow down by some UK buyers, there has also been an increase in those wanting to make the move before the transition period starts.
- Any slacking of demand by UK buyers has been ably taken up by other Northern European nationalities, with Estepona town alone seeing the opening of 4 or 5 specialist Nordic estate agencies to cater for demand from those countries.
- The Spanish demand continues to recover, with many buying investment properties and the traditional town nucleus continuing to expand and new suburban areas created. As the local economies expand, so new buyers and especially tenants arrive to fill the employment opportunities created.
Pending legal changes that could affect property values?
This will be included when appropriate. However, we stress that we are not lawyers and thus can only comment to the best of our knowledge.
We are not aware of any new legislation directly affecting the properties. However, as local legislation can be created by the various government authorities in which the properties lie, there may be relevant legislation of which we are unaware.
Analysis of Statistics
- Survey Spain is recording prices and valuations throughout our Network. Due to the limited number of properties and the even fewer number of reliable sale figures, we are only able to provide a meaningful analysis of prices and values for some Municipalities this quarter. However, as before, we have commented on the majority of the areas, with the opinion sourced from our valuers, agents and other sources in the areas.
- Where we have insufficient information, we have combined information into larger areas.
- As requested and also as this is the area with most activity, we have been able to provide more information on the Costa del Sol market.
- Note that the rates per square metre may be averaged from a small number of properties in some cases. We have continued to supply these as we believe that they will show a trend over a number of quarters, whilst the variation between one quarter and the next may be ‘out of step’ with the perceived trend
- It should be borne in mind that we have few valuations of new property, with the majority being resales.