What's REALLY happening with the Spanish property market?

Hi everyone.  Some basic facts please!

We purchased a house in Bonalba, near Alicante some years ago.  The house took 2 years longer to build than promised (heard that before?)  We put the house on the market in April 2006 because, by then, we had moved to New Zealand and decided not to keep the Spanish property..  However, our dealings with Spanish estate agents has been disappointing.  They seem unable to advise us about the the right price to market the house.  They seem unable to tell us whether the market is flat, bouyant or (as I suspect) over-supplied.  We have not been to Spain for some time, but a year ago is seemed very flat.

So, could anyone tell me... is property still selling?  If so, what are the routes that other people are using sucessfully?

Thanks in advance

Nick

Not sure if I should answer as a newbie but we have just bought after studying the market and house hunting for 18 months.

This time last year we looked at a lot of houses that we had to grab as soon as possible or they would be gone.....(we were told)

Errr... welll.. noooo...  a lot of the same houses are still on the market.

I think things have slowed down a lot and anyone who is new to buying over there will probably go with the "all in" agents to make things easy and they will all be directed to the  new builds with huge agent commissions.

In my opinion purely .. of course.

Nick, things have definitely slowed down a lot.  A lot of properties for sale and far fewer buyers than even just a couple of years ago.  There will always be a demand for Spanish  property as this is so many people's dream, but there's a lot of choice so properties need to be priced correctly and marketed well to get them shifed.

Just my two cents...as they say.

My two cents,

There are several markets..... the re-sale market moves somewhat ahead due to high collaboration between agents... but only the good properties at the right price are sold...... there is a lot of local buyers trying to take advantage of the buyer´s market, but most of them find that their offers are being rejected and the properties they are interested in go sold before they can thik it over.

There are lots of distressed sales... yes... but they are ussually the ones that are nearly impossible to sell..... a lot of people bought lots of apartments to "shift" and most of the time with little or no common sense at all.... apartments facing north..... etc... who is to blame, is the matter of another thread I think.  But the buyers in the market are nowadays mostly people looking forward to make either Spain their home, or try to improve their home in the sun.  There are lots of speculators around, but as I said, most of the "distressed offers" made on good properties are rejected by the vendors.

A lot of Darwinism and reacomodation has yet to occur in this industry and in due course the excess of offer wil dilute as the agents will end up selling them. There is plenty to choose from, but nowhere near the unsold properties after the post 1st gulf war crisis..... and they were sold in a few years.

Cheers,

PS: Excuse me, I forgot to comment on the development ´s side from the agents point of view...  There are no longer 10% attractive developments to sell into..... the ones with a good relationship Price/quality are paying 5 % and that is it..... there are others who pay more..... but they are ussualy the "left over units" or either they are in a segment of price which is more difficult... between 400,000 to 500,000 €.....

The market is hard and the fight is tough, almost every agent, has the same properties at the same price.... the only way to compete nowadays is in the quality that the salesman and afterwards the company offers to the client in order to generate recomendations... a quite civil way to work from my point of view if you ask me, as the client learns to trust its agent and viceversa.

I see the Spanish market as the safest in the long run.... there is no "emerging market" closer than 25 years in infraestructure and experience in tourism than Spain... I wonder what is gonna happen when people end up with houses in Bulgaria, Spain, Turkey, Morocco ( altough there is interesting action going on there with the Plan Azur)... definitely the "Mar de Alboran" is the European California from my point of view..... and time probably will give me the reason..