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The great South American fortunes want to buy properties in Spain.

In spite of the negative economic expectations there are investors who still see Spain as a land of real estate opportunities. “There are doubts about Spain being a safe place to invest, but we see an important flow of investments from South America“, Grainne Gilmore, expert in the residential sector at Knight Frank, explains.

The historic bonds, the language and the trade relations between both regions promote this tendency. According to the figures in the web of the real estate consulting company, the greatest search of luxury properties in Spain come from Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico. In Madrid, the most active international buyers are from Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.

South America is one of the regions with a steady growth in the segment of big fortunes, according to The Wealth Report, an annual report showing the investment trends of the big fortunes.

In 2012, there were 145 people considered multimillionaires in the region, a number which will duplicate in 2020. If the research “only” takes into account those with more than 30 million dollars, the number in South America boosts to 15.230 people.

Christian de Meillac, from Knight Frank, explains that the Latin investors look for properties in Marbella, Ibiza, Costa del Sol, Barcelona and, above all, Madrid. “These are good news as it shows that the doubts on the future of Spain are clearing and that the prices are appropriate”. The type of property these fortunes are looking for exceeds one million Euros. Prices in this segment have dropped by 25%.

These investors follow the lead of big business men that have started to bet on Spain. This would be the case of the Mexican Carlos Slim, who bought a package of branches of La Caixa at the end of last year and the Venezuelan group Sambil, who acquired the mall Avenida M40 in Madrid.

Source: Expansión