Tag: resident

Oaktree Sells 49 Luxury Homes on Madrid’s Gran Vía

9 March 2018 – Eje Prime

Oaktree is successfully completing its luxury development on Madrid’s Gran Vía. The US fund has managed to sell the 49 homes that comprise the project, whose keys will be handed over at the end of 2018.

The good health of the residential sector in Spain, accompanied by the country’s period of economic boom, has allowed the fund to take full advantage of this promotion. Not in vain, the commercialisation of the building, located at number 68 Gran Vía, has reached prices of up to €10,000 per square metre, according to El Economista.

The consultancy firm Magnum&Partners has operated as the delegated promoter for this residential project, which first went on the market in September 2016, with prices as low as €6,000 per square metre, for properties without a parking space.

Due to demand, that figure has increased by 10%. The new homes in the renovated property will have surface areas of between 79 m2 and 247 m2. Moreover, the building will have a panoramic roof terrace with a swimming pool, as well as a gym.

The most expensive home in the building has been sold for an approximate price of €3 million. The tenants of the development, designed by the architecture studio Fenwick Iribarren, will be mostly Spanish, given that 87% of the buyers are nationals, and half of them are resident in Madrid.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Notaries: Foreigners Bought 13.4% More Homes During H1 2017

27 November 2017 – Eje Prime

International players are setting their sights on Spain for investment. The purchase of private homes by foreigners amounted to 50,087 operations during the first half of 2017, which represents an increase of 13.4% compared to the same period last year, according to data from the General Council of Notaries.

Operations completed by overseas purchasers accounted for 19.4% of the total number of sale-and-purchase operations signed during the period, compared with 20.3% during the first half of 2016, although that figure has been increasing since 2007, in line with the start of the economic crisis.

If we differentiate between resident and non-resident foreigners, 46.6% of the purchases were made by non-resident foreigners, up by 5.1% YoY, which means that operations by resident foreigners accounted for 53.4%, the highest proportion since 2011. They grew by 21.8% YoY.

All of the autonomous regions reported progress in terms of the number of homes purchased by foreigners and only five of them recorded increases below the national average, which stood at 13.4%, specifically: the Balearic Islands, with just 5.3%; Andalucía, with 5.4%; Murcia, with 5.7%; the Canary Islands, with 10.1%; and the Community of Valencia, with 12%.

Finally, the average price per square metre of the operations undertaken by overseas buyers amounted to €1,667/m2, which represents an increase of 2.9% in YoY terms. Specifically, the price paid by non-resident foreigners rose by 4.5% to €1,941/m2, whilst the price of homes purchased by residential foreigners increased by 2.8% to €1,405/m2.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Carmena Invites Landlords To Sell Homes To The Town Hall

10 May 2016 – El Mundo

On Monday, the mayoress of Madrid, Manuela Carmena (pictured above) announced that she had been speaking with the representative from the Sustainable Urban Development team, José Manuel Calvo, to evaluate the possibility of arranging a competition to find people willing to sell their homes to the Town Hall “as cheaply as possible”, for the purpose of using them as rented social housing.

“There is a tremendous need for housing”, but the stock owned by the Municipal Housing Company (EMVS) is very limited, lamented the mayoress on her visit to Usera as part of the “One month, one district” program, where she was accompanied by the Councillor-President of Usera, Rommy Arce and a representative from Territorial Coordination, Nacho Murgui.

Carmena said that the EMVS has homes ready for emergencies, but that the Town Hall is facing “difficulties because many (of those homes) are being illegally occupied”. Solutions include approving specific modifications to the rules for accessing the EMVS’s homes and obtaining more homes for use as rental social housing.

The councillor added that all of the homes up for sale in the EMVS “have been rented out, but there are not enough properties”. Another measure that has been evaluated is the construction of homes on free plots of land, although that is a much slower process.

The mayoress offered that response after a resident of Usera realised her situation when she was evicted, after failing to pay her mortgage repayments on time on three occasions, and another resident who has also had to squat “out of necessity”.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake

Notaries: Foreigners Bought 20% Of All Homes Sold In 2015

10 May 2016 – El Economista

Foreigners purchased 76,680 homes in Spain in 2015, which represents an increase of 12.9% compared with 2014 and means that foreigners accounted for 20% of all the homes purchased last year, according to data from the General Council of Notaries, which shows that the weight of house purchases made by foreigners has been increasing since 2007.

Distinguishing between resident and non-resident foreigners, 51.7% of these purchases were made by non-resident foreigners. Even so, the purchase of unsubsidised homes by resident foreigners increased by 18.2%, which exceeded the rate of growth experienced by non-resident foreign buyers (8.4%).

All of the autonomous regions reported increases in the number of purchases of unsubsidised homes by foreigners. Four regions recorded increases below the national average, namely Cataluña (+4.9%), Comunidad Valenciana (+7.2%), Extremadura (+9.8%) and the Canary Islands (+10.3%).

The other regions recorded increases above the national average, driven in particular by La Rioja (+59.1%), Castilla-La Mancha (+57.3%) and Navarra (+41.5%). Aragón (+39.8%), Castilla y León (+34%), País Vasco (+30.7%), Murcia (+25.8%) and Cantabria (+25.5%) reported slightly lower growth rates.

On the next level, with growth rates slightly above the national average, were Galicia (+23.2%), the Balearic Islands (+22.3%), Madrid (+17.3%) and Andalucía (+13.6%).

In 2015, the regions that recorded the most the purchases of unsubsidised homes by foreigners were: the Balearic Islands (44%), the Canary Islands (39%), Comunidad Valenciana (37%), Murcia (25%) and Andalucía (25%).

By contrast, the regions where operations made by foreigners carried the least weight were: País Vasco, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Galicia and Extremadura, where they accounted for around 4%.

Prices increased by almost 3%

The average price per sqm of house purchases made by foreigners in 2015 amounted to €1,598/sqm, which represents a YoY increase of 2.9%. The average price of homes acquired by non-residents rose by 5.6%, to €1,792/sqm, whilst the average price of properties bought by resident foreigners decreased by 0.1% to €1,367/sqm.

The average price of homes acquired by foreigners was higher than the national average in the Balearic Islands (€2,580/sqm), País Vasco (€2,047/sqm), Madrid (€1,867/sqm) and Cataluña (€1,856/sqm). Prices in the other regions fell below the national average, with the lowest prices recorded in Extremadura (€576/sqm), Castilla-La Mancha (€597/sqm), La Rioja (€710/sqm) and Castilla y León (€712/sqm).

In terms of the nationality of the foreigners who bought homes in Spain, the most active buyers were British (which accounted for 20.6% of the total), followed by the French (8.8%), Germans (7.5%), Belgians (5.7%), Italians (5.5%) and Romanian (5.3%). Those nationalities accounted for more than half of the transactions involving purchases of unsubsidised homes made by foreigners in 2015.

The nationality that increased its level of activity by the most in the market for unsubsidised homes during 2015 was Romanian, with a YoY increase of 59%. In addition, Ecuadorian (+43.1%), British (+37.7%), Moroccan (+25.8%), Italian (+18.5%), Irish (+17.8%), Chinese (+16.8%), Swedish (+15%), Argentine (+14.8%) and Swiss (+13.6%) buyers recorded YoY growth rates above the national average.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

Homes Worth Less Than €100K Experience Highest Price Rises

15 March 2016 – El Mundo

One in every four properties brokered by the Alfa Inmobiliaria network, which has more than 200 agencies operating across Spain and Latin America, does not exceed €100,000 in terms of price. And those homes are precisely the properties that are increasing by the most in terms of price, as well as the ones that are being sold the fastest.

According to the real estate chain, one hundred thousand euros is the maximum amount that many Spaniards are willing to pay nowadays for a home to rent out. “The high yield that these homes offer is generating an increase in the price of this type of home”, says Jesús Duque, the Vice-President of Alfa Inmobiliaria. “That, and the fact that it is cheaper for buyers to purchase a home of this kind to rent. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between what a resident in Madrid or Barcelona can find versus what is available in other cities”.

“This psychological barrier seems to have instilled itself in the minds of buyers, which together with demand from investors”, says Duque, “is what is generating a higher increase in prices – of approximately 10% p.a., and, as a result, faster-closing operations”.

And regardless of whether the home is to live in or is an investment property, “this price bracket is where we are seeing the highest price rises”, says Duque.

The other feature of these operations is that the people making these purchases tend to be small-time savers and individuals who are moving out of home for the first time or buying their first home, and in many cases, they are not resorting to bank financing. “Almost 40% of buyers – and/or their families – have the savings necessary to finance the acquisition outright, which means that these operations are being closed within very short timeframes”, says Duque.

The US housing market has grown by 11%, with respect to the first month of 2015, according to The National Association of Realtors.

In Spain, we expect to see a similar evolution, says Duque. Despite the slow down in the world ecnomy, the housing market is emerging from the situation of paralysis that it underwent during the worst years of the crisis. Just like in the US, we expect to see an increase, not only in the number of operations, but also in house prices”, says Duque.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake

House Sales To Foreigners Soar By 30% In Málaga

13 March 2015 – Diario Sur

In 2014, in the province of Málaga, 9,140 homes were sold to citizens from other countries, a figure that comes close to levels last seen before the crisis. This means that foreign buyers accounted for 38% of all real estate transactions in the province last year.

Foreign demand continues to be high in the Malaga property market, which recorded an increase of 28% in house sales last year, according to data published today by the Ministry of Development. Of the 23,929 homes sold in the province in 2014, 9,190 were to foreign buyers, which represents a percentage of 38%.

And the volume of house sales to foreigners has almost doubled in two years: from 5,140 in 2012 to more than 9,000 last year, representing a growth rate of almost 80%. Transactions involving Spanish buyers also increased in 2014, specifically, by 29%. However, according to the Chairman of the Association for Builders and Developers, José Prados, demand for primary residences, i.e. demand from buyers from Malaga itself, continues to be “very static”.

In terms of the foreign nationalities that are buying homes in Malaga, the ranking is led by the British, Scandinavians, French, Benelux, Germans and Russians, in that order, according to Prados. “Demand from Russian buyers, which peaked to compete with that shown by British buyers at one point, has cooled off significantly as a result of the internal problems facing the country”, he adds.

The vast majority of the foreigners that buy homes in Málaga (8,010 out of 9,190) are resident in Spain. The number of non-resident buyers has not increased significantly, despite the incentives introduced by the Government to grant residence permits.

Original story: Diario Sur (by Nuria Triguero)

Translation: Carmel Drake