Spain saw a marked increase in overseas property searches in May on leading listing site Rightmove. The country was responsible for half of the site’s top 10 climbers in May with key indicators of interest being Minorca up 9.06%, Marbella up 6.68%, Galicia up 5.96%, Northern Spain up 5.22%, and the Balearic Islands up +3.65%.
“May was a great result for Spain, fed by returning confidence among buyers as the bad memories and headlines of last year fade,” said Robin Wilson, Head of Overseas at Rightmove this week.
“It’s always hard to let go of what your property was worth at the peak of at the market and accept times have changed, but vendors also seem more open and have much improved realism about prices necessary to make transactions happen. The improving Euro exchange rate is definitely playing a part, up 10% on January this year and 20% on January last year, meaning buyer’s budgets can go further.”
Foreign exchange specialists Moneycorp also saw a rise in enquiries for Spanish properties, with enquiries up 11.8% between March and May. According to David Kerns, Head of Private Clients at Moneycorp, “throughout May, sterling gained good ground against a weak euro. Having started the month at €1.14, the rate eventually reached €1.18 towards the end of the month.”
The pound also benefited from economic data which continues to support the view that the UK recovery is gaining traction. In contrast, the euro has continued to weaken, following news that Spain’s AAA credit rating had been downgraded. It was sent even lower when the European Central Bank warned that eurozone banks faced writing off another €195 billion of bad loans last week. The increase in the sterling/euro exchange rate would have made properties within the euro zone an increasingly more attractive prospect for euro buyers, and explains the surge in interest in Spain.
The United States also saw some interesting trends in the Rightmove Search Report with a 15.5% fall in searches for Florida, a 9.11% fall in the Gulf Coast and 6.05% fall in the Orlando/Central Coast region.”
Finally, Malta was up for the 5th consecutive month and on course to break into the top 10 countries on Rightmove this year. Search volumes were up 73% on April 2009 and not far off 2008 levels.
Source: OPP