Tag: Rome

14 May 2015 – Expansión

Recovery / The prices of high-end homes will increase by 5% in Spain’s largest cities in 2015, but they still fall well below those seen in Monaco, London and Paris.

Madrid and Barcelona are two of the large European cities in which luxury housing is least expensive. Nevertheless, it is clear that high quality properties are going to become more expensive in 2015. Specifically, by 5% in the “most prestigious areas” of Barcelona and by between 2% and 3% in Madrid.

Those are the findings of a study by Coldwell Banker – one of the largest networks of real estate brokers in the world – which compares prices per square metre for new, used and luxury housing in prime areas of the continent’s main real estate cities: Monaco, Prague, Rome, Milan, Paris, Valeta (Malta), Berlin and London, as well as in the Madrilenian and Cataluñan capitals. The comparison is linear; it does not take into account the (respective) income of citizens.

In the urban centre of Madrid, the average price per square metre of new housing developments is €5,610, i.e. €110 more than in the centre of Barcelona (€5,500). Those figures are light years away from the (prices seen in) London (€11,500/m2) and Paris (€10,000/m2) and from the stratospheric prices of €80,000 per square metre in the principality of Monaco.

Thus, whilst a 100 m2 apartment in a well-located area of the Spanish capital costs €561,000 on average; in the centre of Monte Carlo, the price of the same property would soar to €8 million. In other words, the same price as 14 such properties in Madrid and 14.5 in Barcelona. We should bear in mind that Monaco has a surface area of just 2 square kilometres, in which almost every centimetre contributes exclusivity and luxury.

Other European cities have less prohibitive prices. The price per usable square metre of a new residential property in Milan amounts to €10,500 and in Rome, to €8,500.

Of the 10 individual real estate markets covered in the report, only three are cheaper than Madrid and Barcelona: Berlin (€4,800 per m2, on average), Valeta (Malta, €3,650/m2) and Prague (€2,770/m2).

The price of luxury housing is increasing with respect to central areas in all of the cities, except for Monaco, which is an extremely “limited” market, says the report. The price per m2 of a new luxury apartment – not necessarily in the centre – is €60,000 in the state of Monaco.

Far below the prices seen in the Principality, the most exclusive capital in Europe is Paris, where the average price per square metre of luxury homes amounts to €25,000. In third place and still in a bubble is London, where residential properties of the highest quality have an average price of €18,000 per square metre.

Prices in London are double those in Madrid (€9,033). Luxury homes in Madrid are 20% more expensive than in Barcelona (€7,500 per square metre).

Limited supply

In Barcelona, “prices will start to recover slowly in the main areas. In the areas of highest demand and prestige, we expect to see an increase of between 3% and 5%”, says the report. In Madrid the increases will amount to between 2% and 3%.

According to Coldwell Banker, the “high quality” residential market in Madrid “is still very limited” and in Barcelona “supply is limited, since there are few new buildings in the centre of the city”. In Madrid, there are approximately 200 developments of this kind in the centre and around 400 in the wider metropolitan area.

That is not the case in other capitals. The supply of new homes in Berlin is “extremely strong”. Investors mostly seek “small furnished, high-end luxury apartments”. Penthouses can cost as much as €20,000 per square metre.

The other goldmine is still London: “In Mayfair and Marylebone, there is a large supply of new projects that are just coming to an end now”, says the report.

Original story: Expansión (by Juanma Lamet)

Translation: Carmel Drake