The Helicópteros Sanitarios Puerto Banús HQ

Well, in many respects you could say it always has been of course… but now more so than ever before because I’m delighted to be able to tell you that all new clients purchasing a home through VIVA now receive one year’s free membership to Helicópteros Sanitarios – the Costa del Sol’s leading rapid response Home Doctor & Medical Emergency Service.

The Helicópteros Sanitarios medical teams have responded to almost 852,000 calls for assistance and have saved more than 14,460 lives in the last 23 years which is a truly remarkable achievement…

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Decorhaus: now up to 70% discount

With three furniture superstores – one in Mijas Costa and two in Málaga – together totalling over a huge 12,000m2 of room displays, Decorhaus, as their marketing director Manuel Tejada explains, prides itself on “choice, quality, service and a highly competitive pricing policy”. And, right now, to make sure your money goes further still…

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Various national Press and TV media have again asked VIVA to comment in the past few days about the Greek crisis and the Euro currency issue affecting our Spanish property market. There was no short reply, and we couldn’t spend hours talking to them all, so this was our considered and rather long written response.

Phew… What an incredible drama and what an unbelievably stressful time we have all been through since the whole Greek crisis began to unveil itself some 19 months ago and almost spin out of complete control in the past 19 days.

Incredible frustration we know…

In the past two months, within VIVA we have seen record numbers of viewings for our properties from clients all over Europe. We know from our business history, from our website traffic and from the overall downturn in Spanish property sales over the past 5 years that there is now a huge reservoir of people, who are our clients, that are now eager and wanting to make their move into the market and buy.

Everyone knows that prices have been brought down to levels that would have been thought impossible to see. Developers, Banks and Private Vendors who feel they now simply have to sell, have reduced their prices to do exactly that: Sell.

As a result of this, in the first part of October, continuing from a really successful summer, VIVA saw its best sales performance in the past 5 years with properties being sold every single day.

Then coming to the boil, the Greek crisis that has been ever present like the elephant in the room for the past year and half, came crunching to our and everyone else’s door, and for a moment, or 19 days, almost slammed it shut. We then sold a property every four days instead of daily… Continue Reading

We’re delighted to welcome Moneycorp to VIVA Recommends – our dynamic new initiative specially designed to showcase and promote the Costa del Sol’s foremost service providers and suppliers that we’re confident you can trust.

Highlights of the Moneycorp microsite include an online Currency Converter; their unique Daily Market Video, keeping you right up to date on the foreign exchange market and a roundup of breaking economic news; and…

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From:           Martina Heynemann

To:               Team VIVA

Sent:            Friday, 19/08/2011, 17:30

Subject:       Purchase tax on new-build Spanish property cut by 50%

Hi guys!

I wanted to share this breaking news with you, which so far as I’m aware is unprecedented and an absolutely fantastic opportunity for any of your clients thinking of buying a new-build property here on the Costa del Sol.

In a totally unexpected move the Minister of Development, José Blanco, has today announced that with immediate effect, the IVA tax on all new-build properties in Spain has been reduced from 8% to 4%. This means for example that when a client purchases a property costing €200,000, instead of paying the €16,000 IVA previously in force, the tax bill will now only equate to half that amount – €8,000.

On a sliding scale, a property costing €400,000 will therefore only mean a tax bill of €16,000 instead of €32,000… and so on.  So you don’t need me to tell you that with the money buyers can now save, they could furnish their new home, purchase a car, or maybe even upgrade to a bigger or more lavishly appointed unit.

The government has introduced this temporary initiative – only in force until 31 December 2011 don’t forget – in a bid to kickstart Spain’s stagnant construction industry and reduce dole queues. But for potential buyers, with only four months left in which to cash in, the clock is already ticking…

Martina Heynemann

Managing Partner

From:           Martina Heynemann

To:                Team VIVA

Sent:             Friday, 01/07/2011, 15:20

Subject:        Foreign investment in Spanish property up by 28.7%

Hi guys!

Well, here’s some excellent news from Spain’s Diario Expansión website which reports that during the first three months of this year, foreign buyers invested no less than €1,130 million in Spanish property. That’s 28.7% more than in the same period of 2010.

What’s more, according to the latest data released by the Bank of Spain, it’s the first time since 2008 that the total has broken through the €1,000 million barrier, and in fact the Spanish real estate market hasn’t seen such a huge increase for almost a decade.

Of course we all know that the number of overseas property investors started to decline back in 2003, before going into free fall in 2008 and 2009,  so let’s all hope this reversal of trends continues!

But while foreign investment in Spain is showing such a marked increase, Spanish overseas investment is apparently still falling and quarterly figures haven’t risen above €600 million since 2007.

Apologies to those of our Blog readers who don’t speak Spanish, but if you’d like to know more, then please pop in and we’ll be only too happy to give you a full breakdown of the article.

Martina Heynemann

VIVA Managing Partner

From:             Martina Heynemann
To:                 Team VIVA
Sent:              Wednesday, 15/06/2011, 18:03h
Subject:         Today’s the Day!

Hi guys!

Well, as you all know, we launched the first new pages – About Us and Selling – of our brand new website a couple of weeks ago, and today is another landmark … because it’s the day that our fabulous new Blog goes live!

Take a look at what the creative team have been up to these past weeks – and why they’ve been burning the midnight oil – because take it from me, our Blog looks absolutely amazing. Continue Reading