An article in the Daily Mail reports on how Spain comes out 45th in a league table of 51 countries in relation to their house price falls. Now is this a bad thing?

Not at all! In fact, if you read the article to the end, they state the obvious, that the turmoil in property prices faced particularly by the likes of Ireland (51st) and Spain, is actually a confirmation that these housing markets are over the worst.

We have never been ones to bury our head in the sand at VIVA. If it’s bad we face up to it, and we don’t talk the market up either, because it’s not our role. We simply help buyers acquire the right home at the right price, whatever the prevailing market conditions. But I have to say, it’s ohhh… so nice to be able to point to a whole variety of indicators that demonstrate we are at the bottom of our own crisis, that we are facing recovery and, well, an end to a pretty tough past six years really.

So, don’t shoot us for being happy about that.

Although Spain was the most popular property destination for almost all of last year, according to TheMoveChannel.com, there was a bit of a wobble for a while. Then in December there was an about turn as British buyers fell out of love with US real estate, and with enquiries for property on the other side of the pond plunging by 7.32% last month, it was relegated from 1st to 4th place.

Still, with enquiries about Spanish property falling by a barely noticeable 0.18%, Spain immediately shot back to the top of the list. Elsewhere in Europe, Portugal climbed from 4th to 2nd place with 9.15% of total enquiries, while France remained in 3rd place with enquiries up by 1.05%.

“As 2011 ends, the fluctuations in the Top 10 show the changing buyer demands in an uncertain market,” says Don Johnson, TheMoveChannel’s MD. “Spain has always been a traditional choice for lifestyle buyers, as shown by the constant level of interest in the country… so its return to the top spot seems an appropriate end to the year.”

Further afield, Barbados and Morocco entered the Top 10 for the first time, while the UAE jumped eight places to finish 12th.     

According to a recent report from the Bank of Spain, the latest figures currently available show that overseas investment in Spanish real estate soared by 27.8% up to September 2011 – compared with the same period in 2010 – with the transactions made during that time amounting to €3,601 million.

A separate report, by Spain’s daily newspaper El Mundo, also states that for the first time since 2008, overall investments during the three consecutive quarters were in excess of €1,000 million, while in the third quarter of 2011 foreign investment in Spanish property totalled €1,164 million – up a substantial 19.2% on figures for the same period in 2010.

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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For more than 20 years, chairman and president of DM Properties, Diana Morales, has been a keen observer of the changes taking place in Spain in general and Marbella in particular, especially within the property sector.

Every year we eagerly anticipate reading Diana Morales’ annual Marbella Real Estate Market Report.

This year it seemed to come to us a bit later than usual, I guess because Diana was watching the market carefully and no doubt checking how the land was lying before fully committing to her Report.

We have even waited a few weeks ourselves, for the whole ‘eurozone crisis’ to settle itself back down, before presenting her Report to our own blog and website visitors.

Regardless as ever, whenever it comes, Diana’s Report is always an excellent piece of work and, as every year, we have no hesitation in providing a link to it.

While DM Properties and VIVA of course operate in the same geographical area, our respective markets are, however, quite different…

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The new marina will be funded entirely by private investment

It was way back in 2006 that plans to build a marina in La Cala were first drawn up, and at last they’ve just been approved by the Junta de Andalucía, meaning that the municipality of Mijas can now join the towns of Fuengirola, Benalmádena, Málaga, Marbella, Estepona, Manilva and Sotogrande – all of whom have boasted their own yacht harbours for a good many years.

The new marina…

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Spanish Secretary of State for Housing, Beatriz Corredor

A few months back, I engaged in some private mail with a poster called ‘Roots’ on the Spanish Property Insight forum. Roots has, along with another poster called ‘Keith110’, long been campaigning to bring to account the Spanish government, the Bank of Spain and any number of lawyers, estate agents, developers and well just everyone connected to the issues concerning abusive practice and abject failures, in relation to many Bank Guarantees given to British buyers that have not been honoured.

It is an enormous and disgraceful tragedy that people such as Roots and Keith110 have had to now dedicate so much of their personal time and lives to seek redress and action on the part of the Spanish government and in fact the whole real estate industry, over something that I’m sure started out for them as an exciting adventure into buying a home in Spain…

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Based on an analysis of our own business trends and my personal instincts – both of which have been tested in the Costa del Sol property market for some 22 years now – I can finally answer the oft-asked question, and state with certainty – probably long before you’ll hear it elsewhere – that we have now finally reached the ‘bottom of the market’ for Costa del Sol real estate.

How can I do this ahead of official government statistics or our economic guru journalists? Well, here are the facts of the matter…

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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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Can you believe what a Costa del Sol real estate agent’s website tells you or offers you?

A bit of background first

About six or seven years ago, around 100 or so agents with offices on the Costa del Sol became used to sharing a single software platform, that then allowed them all to display not only their own properties on their websites, but those of the 100 other agents on that same platform.

The result…

All well and good we thought. Very helpful, everyone believed, as agents often shared their clients between each other in the typical USA broker and European Agent way, thus also sharing their commission. Everyone benefited from the developing Internet phenomenon at the time.

Today it’s quite a bit different …

90% of so-called Agents no longer even have offices so it seems. But they do have quite good-looking websites, sometimes really terrific ones, but the stark reality is that their office is actually a corner of their living room or a desk in the back bedroom of their Costa apartment.

I don’t have a problem with that per se. Well, yes, actually I suppose I do… Continue Reading