They became a symbol of the global housing market crash, unsold, half-built, lining the Mediterranean like skeletal relics of a bygone, more prosperous age.
But villas and apartments on the Spanish Costas are suddenly hot property again as Britain’s second-home buyers rediscover the attractions of life in southern Spain.
Fresh from a chilly, dismal winter, drawn by falling prices and apparently undaunted by the low sterling-euro exchange rate, a new generation of would-be buyers has descended on Spain, according to the Spanish division of Taylor Wimpey.
Typical holiday home buyers are no longer “stereotype retirees”, the UK’s biggest housebuilder said. Instead, executives with families who spend an average of 60 days a year in Spain have emerged as the dominant British buyers in a region that enjoyed huge popularity during the credit-fuelled boom years.
Since then, the most oversupplied holiday apartments in Spain have suffered price falls of about 50 per cent. Properties in Palma and Mallorca were among the world’s biggest fallers last year, sliding by 22 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively, according to Knight Frank, the estate agent.
Perhaps in search of a bargain, Rightmove Overseas, the website, said that the number of searches had risen by 60 per cent compared with March last year. Portugal was its most popular search among buyers of holiday homes, it said.
Primelocation.com reported a rise in searches for international property of 72 per cent between February 2009 and 2010, with France recording the biggest annual rise of 113 per cent. Spain remained the most popular country, accounting for 32 per cent of all searches, compared with 29 per cent for France.
Savills’ office in Sotogrande, Andalucia, also said there had been a rise in inquiries from British buyers, even if many were still reluctant to commit to a purchase. James Stewart, head of the division, said: “Prices are coming back for traditional-quality properties but not in the more credit-squeezed areas. Trading is still slow but people are once again having a good look.”
Taylor Wimpey, which has offered discounts of about 30 per cent on some properties, said that 75 per cent of buyers of its apartments, which cost about €200,000 for a two-bedroom flat, were executives aged between 35 and 50 with children. Interest had been strongest in the Costa del Sol, particularly in and around Marbella, as well as the Balearic islands. The group sold one third of its newest development, just outside Marbella, offplan within a month of launching the scheme, a performance that it said was “significantly ahead of expectations”.
A spokesman for Taylor Wimpey, which began developing in Marbella for the first time in three years last month, said: “Marbella is like the South East of England rather than Salford. It was not a volume market and didn’t suffer the same over-development as other areas. Prices, therefore, did not fall as much as in other parts of Spain.” Interest in apartments in the Costa Brava in towns such as Alicante, where oversupply is a bigger problem, had been slower to pick-up.
Revenue at Taylor Wimpey España was largely flat between 2008 and 2009, at £59.8 million and £61 million, respectively, but the division made a narrower operating loss last year, at £1.4 million, compared with £2.4 million in 2008.
‘I LIKE THE WEATHER AND THE LIFESTYLE’
Derek Parrott bought his holiday home in Marbella last July as the pound slumped towards parity with the euro and Britain was in the thick of recession.
But the 61-year-old managing director of a construction company knew that with prices down by 30 or 40 per cent in Spain, there was a deal to be done — and besides, he said, he bought his three-bedroom, €270,000 apartment for the lifestyle, not as an investment.
“I just wanted to spend time there,” he said. “I like the weather and I like the lifestyle. The exchange rate did make me think twice and I went in knowing that prices will now at best remain flat for a while.”
Mr Parrott and his wife have already visited their new holiday home in Los Robles de Los Arqueros half a dozen times and plan to go six or seven times a year. “I particularly like this area. We watched the development go up and I know it has been done properly and is managed properly.
“It is not a development from hell, like you see on the television programmes.”
(Rebecca O’Connor)
Source: Times Online