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Spanish properties are now bargains in the sun

By Fiona Govan in Madrid
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 26/04/2007

Britons thinking about buying property abroad were told yesterday that the predicted collapse of the Spanish housing market would create a golden opportunity to pick up a bargain.

But there was little comfort for the many who have already bought homes in Spain. More than 250,000 properties along the Costa del Sol and the Costa Blanca are British owned.


"The housing market in Spain is about to implode," economists at Lombard Street Research warned yesterday, the day after shares in construction companies went into freefall on the Spanish stock market. The panic selling signalled an end to a housing boom that saw property prices rocket over the last decade.

Overseas property experts predicted that in the coming months property would go on the market at bargain prices.

"There is little doubt that Spain will become a buyer's market," said Jamie Liddell a property expert at Homes Overseas Magazine. "As the bottom falls out of the market we will see distressed sellers off-loading property for a lot less than they paid for it. In six months to a year, people will start to feel the pressure to sell," he said.

Those looking for a long-term investment could reap the benefits. "It will be the perfect time to pick up a bargain," said Mr Liddell.

But thousands of existing Spanish property owners now face major losses. "Speculators who have bought property in Spain over the last few years in the hope of making a fast buck have been caught with their pants down," said Mark Stucklin of Barcelona-based Spanish Property Insight, which provides advice on buying in Spain.

Particularly at risk are those who paid up front on off-plan properties in the hope of selling them for a high profit within a very short period.

"Many of those sort of investors may find that they own property that will never be completed as construction companies decide to cut their losses."

Low interest rates in Europe have fuelled the property market in Spain in recent years, but cheap money has led to speculators building more homes than required.

Last year more than 800,000 new homes were built in Spain, which amounted to more than in the UK, France and Germany combined.

Pierre Williams of Inside Track, the overseas property investment consultancy, said the bursting of the bubble of Spanish property market was long overdue. "Just as in the UK the era of automatically making vast sums of money on the back of rampant house price rises is over in Spain."

But he said that those who had invested well were not likely to suffer.

"That does not mean that those quality properties in quality locations can not deliver excellent returns as a mid to long term investment," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/04/26/wspain26.xml