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As you can imagine in recent months we have been
approached regarding repossessed apartments, townhouses and villas
throughout the Costa del Sol. Where can they be found, whether we had
any, etc…
There have recently been a few companies that have
attempted to market reposessed properties through auctions and web
advertising and most have failed miserably. How can this be? Would not
the canny investor with hard cash be willing to grab a front line beach
apartment for 50,000 Euros anywhere on the Costa del Sol? Of course,
such property just does not exist!
People talk about auctions or repossessions and
the huge discounts available, but if you look at the figures, the
figures just don’t stack up. Please don’t take my word on it, do a
search on Google. You will either come up with one of two types of
websites when searching for bank repossessions on the Costa del Sol.
The first type, will be a site stuffed with terms like bargain,
distressed, etc… and will not contain any properties but ask you for
contact details. The second type, will show you some properties that
might be from the banks but the prices are not particularly impressive.
So why are bank repossessions not necessarily that
fantastic? Well unlike say the UK, banks in Spain take a more long term
view to property. Although repossessions are higher now than this time
last year home-owner mortgages do not make a majority of the debt owed
to banks. This is due to the banking legislation put into place by
Spain’s central bank; Spanish banks have to way up the risks of giving
mortgages a lot more aggressively than their counter-parts abroad.
Second, if the last crisis is anything to go by, the bank would rather
sit on the asset and wait until a turnaround in the market. Many will
more than likely set up management companies to deal with the stock,
renting them in the meantime and selling them when the market turns
around.
Many of the most desirable apartments, townhouses
and villas were bought by a select few, who generally bought off the
successful sale of a previous asset they had. A standard example is the
British couple who sold their semi-detached back home for an
astronomical sum and then used the proceeds to buy their ideal home on
the Costa del Sol.
The other sort of buyer were those who bought into
the marketing/dream and went for the off-plan purchase, putting down
15%/30% with the remainder on completion. Now that they can’t complete
the property has been reclaimed by the developer, who, already
discounting unsold properties, can do it further on that particular
unit due to the gains made on the fallen through sale. And few of the
developments are in prime locations, so even with heavy discounts, are
not the most attractive of propositions.
A good example is an apartment block in Los Pacos
of Fuengirola. On one repossession site a ground floor apartment there
is advertised for 199,000 Euros. Whereas we have 2 properties there can
beat that price and are tastefully furnished.
So whatever you are looking for, don’t get caught
up in marketing gimmicks. Keep track of prices and when you are a
position to buy on the Costa del Sol send through you enquiries to view
the properties. Then put through what you see is a reasonable offer on
the property that you feel best suits your criteria.
Regards
Andrew Belles
Costa del Sol property
Article Source:
http://www.articlesbase.com/
real-estate-articles/bank-repossessions-in-spain-734173.html About the Author
A real estate agent based in Southern Spain.
Our office in located in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol | 