Since the Spanish economy suffered a crippling crash in 2007, there has not been much to shout about for the Spanish property market, however, 7 years on, is the Spanish property market facing a turn in fortunes?
According to some experts, over the past couple of years, the Spanish market has begun to find it’s feet once more. A recent resurgence in Spanish property sales has prevented the economy from receding much further and looks like it may bringing some much needed stability to the market, after years of economic downturn. However, whilst future prospects do look promising, things are still currently not as rosy as they may first appear.
Ignore for a moment, how housing prices have plummeted over 40 percent since the beginning of the downturn in 2007, and you will see that real estate values are still in fact on the decline, and are expected to fall a further 15-20 per cent before the market bottoms out, and begins to ascend once more.
Foreign Investment Provides Much Needed Boost
Some experienced economists are projecting a major rocket in Spanish real estate sales, due to Spain managing to lure the interest international bargain hunters. Investors from all over the globe are enquiring about purchasing properties in Spain for as long as property rates continue to drop. Highly regarded investment houses in the economic sector, for example, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Paulson & Co have begun to invest in Spanish property.
Quite a few established and up and coming Spanish real estate agents see positive outcomes in the years to come. They see 2014 as the year for numerous transactions and closed deals as the monetary influx into the country’s property sector continues to grow and in turn regenerate into Europe’s fourth largest economy. Apartments, land and houses are the investments of choice for international buyers, primarily in Madrid and it’s surrounding localities. CBRE Spain, a market consulting firm have shown transactions of over five billion euros in property sales last year.
With a projected economic expansion of around 0.3 percent during the last three months of 2013, Spain managed to show its fastest quarterly growth rate in over 6 years. With a positive outlook, the Spanish government are expecting a 0.7 per cent increase in GDP by the third quarter of this year.
Construction Industry Finding its Feet
International investors are beginning to pump their funds into Spanish government bonds, as they were doing before the recession. This beneficial fact has the Spanish government dishing out lower interest rates on borrowed money.
The construction and housing sectors have also shown a marked and significant acceleration, in an attempt to keep up with the increasing number of exports. A larger number of investors are now looking to purchase property in Spain, due to the year round temperate climate and beautiful scenery combined with a slow-paced and impressive quality of life.
An increasing amount of jobs in the construction industry have now opened up, and this will go some way towards helping the country deal with its massive unemployment problems; currently, around 25 per cent of Spaniards of working age are unemployed.
Bradley Shore is an experienced property writer, who has recently been concentrating on blogging for a number of clients including Alta Vista Property. He likes to educate his audience with his articles and loves to debate the content of his work.