Spain statistics

First things first, I would like to repeat that this is not a political speculation blog :-) However, the effects of political decisions, alongside a myriad other types of effects, do manifest themselves in currency markets - the biggest financial sector on earth. So further to my previous post on Brexit effects  , I am displaying here today's updated GBP vs EUR graph:

The green area is the change since the aforementioned blog post on the 13th of March where I stated that the area of 1.10 appears to be potentially strong support and where all the bad news had been absorbed. As it turns out the pound has bounced at that level around mid-March and has surged today to 9% higher than then. It is now sitting above its 200-day average which is normally consider as a long-term support in the financial world.

As an estate agent in Spain, I consider these to be very good news, regardless of the reason for the rise of GBP. It remains to be seen if this will translate in more interest from British buyers - I will be watching the statistics coming out of INE closely.

The point of this post is actually to put my neck out once again and state that I do not believe the British pound will have too much upside. If you were considering transferring money and the exchange rate was one of the factors delaying you, then perhaps you will want to take this opportunity to re-evaluate. Until 2018 I personally do not believe that any clear direction will develop, beyond what has already been traced. I base this on the clear commitment by the Bank of England to "print" what is required to counter-balance any strengthening of the pound, that might cause exports to drop more than what is expected as an effect of Brexit. And strong moves like today will force their hand.

In conclusion, my personal opinion as a blogger is that as far as the GBP/EUR exchange rate goes bear in mind that the high level might be very close. I will admit being wrong without hesitation if I need to! :-)

Thanks for reading.

Taking a break from Brexit related posts, here is a purely Costa del Sol property related subject: by how much do property prices per metre squared vary in a certain location? We all expect euros/m2 to vary between Marbella and San Pedro for example, but how about within San Pedro itself? This question came up when we compared euros/m2 paid by clients along the coast and we realised that some areas had massive variations, and others very close to 0 differences. So check your area of interest below to see if it might be possible to get a better deal for the same square metreage.

Let's look at an example with a graph. The image and datatable below show values for apartment prices per m2. Around the 50% mark we find:

Location: San Pedro de Alcantara

Minimum price pre m2: 1536 euros

Range: 50.7% - i.e. you might find properties with anywhere between 1,536 euros/m2 and 50% higher (3,118 euros/m2)

This might present the property buyer with some opportunities. But first the data:

As you can see, for areas that are relatively small or from a handful of developers, such as Bahia de Marbella, Los Arqueros etc, the percentage variation is small, i.e. any apartment will cost as any other, the main variable being the built area - prices per square metre are very similar. What was unexpected, at least for us, is the fact that large diverse areas like Calahonda or Benalmadena also have narrow price/m2 ranges. This indicates to us that there is high competition, sellers cannot get away with setting a higher-than-average price, so as a buyer you might expect to get a "fairer" price for your property.

In contrast, equally surprisingly, we have compact areas like Sabinillas or Sotogrande with upto 60+% difference in cost per m2. As a buyer in these areas, you might be advised to shop around because it is quite possible to find a very similar property upto 60% cheaper, in the extreme cases.

(Notice that I left out of the discussion the lower and higher data points because they seem like ouliers)

For villas the data is as follows:

Again, if you are looking for a villa in El Paraiso, or Elviria then it might be worth your while to compare prices per m2 to ensure you are getting a fair deal in the market.

I hope you find the data as thrilling as I do :-) We have many more property statistics on our website, so if you are interested either click the links on the right or send me a PM here, I can forward you the Excel data or give you some more hints depending on your Costa del Sol area of interest.

Till next time, thanks for reading.