The Real Estate Market in Spain continues to make a name for itself. Focus on some data collected by Amat Immobiliaris, primary luxury real estate agency in Barcelona and Prestige MLS since 2013. Guifré Amat accepted to share with us the results of the 1-half-year 2014 Market Report edited by his analysts.
Guifré, in summary, how is the transaction market in your area doing?
For another half-year, we find that the sales market has shown an increase in activity. Prices have stabilised, and seem to be moving upwards in areas that are beginning to lack newly built properties.
The Golden Visa approved by the Spanish government has been a key point to catch interest from certain international buyers.
The impact sale price evolved differently in each area:
In the residential area around Barcelona city (Sant Cugat del Vallès, Sant Just Desvern, Esplugues de Llobregat, etc.) it remained stable. The fluctuation was less than 1% upwards or downwards, depending on the town.
In the city of Barcelona there were different variations depending on the neighbourhoods:
In summary, the average price of the sale operations remained stable overall, although in Barcelona city it rose a little, while in the residential hinterland it fell by a similar percentage.
Amat Immobiliaris Family
According to your datas, can we say that the new projects are the pillar of the transaction market in Barcelona?
51% properties sold by Amat on 1st half year 2014, were of newly built properties. In the city of Barcelona, and despite the fact that the stock of new properties is not abundant, over 70% of the operations in this period were of new properties. As we said of 2013, in Barcelona city the foreign buyer market is very active, and those buyers generally accord priority to new property.
Talking of foreign buyers, where are they from and are they a main target for Amat?
The overseas buyer market is still dominated by buyers from Russia and surrounding countries, very closely followed by North African buyers (basically from Egypt). Other buyers were from China, Venezuela, Belgium, France and the UK. In relation to the first half-year of the previous year, there was a 4% rise in sales to overseas purchasers. In Barcelona city they accounted for nearly 50% of our sales. Our company meets all requirements to assist a foreign buyer, so for sure, overseas customers are a target audience for our company.
Guifré, Spanish government introduced one year ago the « Golden Visa », the aim of the newly-approved law was to boost the economy by helping high net-worthy foreigners enter and reside in the country. What kind of benefits have you had thanks to this government venture?
The Golden Visa approved by the Spanish government has been a key point to catch interest from certain international buyers, but not enough to close a significant amount of deals. Since the Golden Visa was approved the amount of potential buyers coming from China and Middle East has increased dramatically. But compared to other countries offering also Golden Visa like Portugal, ours is less competitive, so many of these potential buyers finally choose to buy in Portugal. Spanish Government should think about to change it to be more competitive. Probably Middle East buyers are the ones who are more seriously interested in the Spanish Golden Visa.
