Thought I’d ease myself into this new role by following up on a couple of items featured in our December issue; there being safety in the known and all that.
The first item that caught my eye was the statistics regarding real estate sales to foreigners for the first half of this year, showing a 36% drop, year on year. Well, you only have to walk around town to see that there are fewer specialist, expat, estate agencies open for business.
Over the past two years, many have either simply vanished (e.g. CyberSurfer Properties) or closed down expensive offices and retreated to working from their homes. So it clearly has not been ‘boomtown.’
With that in mind, I took myself down to the offices of that doyen of expatriate specialists, Lingwood Salobreña, where Partner James Thomas was generous with his time, and his knowledge of this particular market. Essentially, James says, there is still a certain amount of uncertainty in the market regarding the future direction of prices. And we all know what markets hate most – uncertainty!
However, people are still buying and selling houses. Prices are probably a little softer than previously, and most are open to ‘offers.’ It’s probably the best time for years to be buying, particularly if you’re looking for something beyond the short term; e.g. a retirement property. The relative weakness of sterling has been a double-edged sword, in that while it makes a Euro purchase more expensive, British vendors who plan to return home have been able to accept much lower offers for their property.
At the end of the day (to quote David Beckham), James adopts the philosophy that, “This is still an unspoiled corner of Spain. The Sun still shines 320 days per year. And there will always be people, particularly from Northern Europe, who will want that.”
Finally, a note of caution: If you’re considering renting out your property for a while, be sure you use a reputable, established agency. There are, apparently, unscrupulous persons who will collect rents on your behalf, then abscond with them – leaving you considerably out of pocket, and with nobody supervising your property. Not good.