Spanish Property Investment Advice 

Brought to you each week by our property expert, Iain Maitland.

Posted on 31 March 2006

550 Acre Luxury Spanish Resort Close to Valencia

Biggest property news story coming out of Spain this week? Allegedly, it comes from Marbella. The police have just arrested Marbella Mayor Marisol Yague and 18 other city officials for money laundering and making corrupt property deals in the coastal resort. The police have frozen about 1,000 bank accounts connected with the case and seized some 350 million euros and 250+ ranches. Yague also faces other charges including breach of trust, influence peddling and fraudulent price fixing. Allegedly, of course. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds and impacts on the local property market. I am currently putting together a piece on Marbella for my website, www.internationalpropertyalerts.co.uk. Let me know if you want it.

PropertyFinance, the overseas mortgage arm of The 4Less Group plc, has a new range of products this week for new buyers and existing owners of property in Spain. These include an 80 per cent Loan to Value mortgage which includes all costs. This may make it worthwhile remortgaging to release equity, for example. There are also mortgages with up to a 40 year repayment period, interest-only mortgages over 10 years and offplan stage payment mortgages which enable you to finance stage payments during the building process. Check out www.propertyfinance4less.com for fuller details.

If you are looking to leverage a decent discount on any new-builds, it is always useful to go in armed with some stats. It all helps! The Association of Property Developers is predicting that the price of new homes in Spain should fall by between 5 and 10 per cent this year. They give two reasons. One is slowing construction levels. The other is the competition from the emerging markets. Frankly, it is rot. From where I am sitting, property prices in Spain are moving slowly up at about 5 per cent per annum. Of course, much depends on where you are buying.

The big hotspotting news this week is that Terry Venables has received outline planning permission to build a 550 acre luxury Spanish resort close to Valencia. This will comprise 1000+ apartments and villas and pools around an 18 hole golf course. There will also be two football pitches, tennis courts and a five star hotel and a shopping village. It is tipped to rival La Manga as a sports resort. You only have to look at what happened there to see what can happen here. If you are thinking of investing in this part of the country, this might be the place and time to do it. I am working on a report on this for my website, www.internationalpropertyalerts.co.uk. Let me know if you wish to receive it.

Warmest Wishes

Iain Maitland

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