The residential urbanisation Sotogrande has for more than 45 years been known for its exclusivity and its important property owners who mostly only came during the summer months. Hence Sotogrande was in its early days a very quiet and tranquil place with a small community which consisted mostly of Spanish residents and due to its Phillipine creator Joseph McMicking, Phillipine residents as well.
It was only when the land border between Gibraltar and Spain was opened again in 1982 that there suddenly began a real interest from other countries to buy and invest in Sotogrande. The airport of Gibraltar was now only a fifteen minute drive away instead of having to rely solely on Malaga airport which, back in the 80's when the A7 hadn't yet been constructed, was at least an hour and a half drive.
The main new investors at this point though were the British, both from England and also from Gibraltar, and towards the middle of the 80's there began a real building boom with construction cranes scattered all over Sotogrande and empty plots that had lain empty for twenty years suddenly became occupied with new houses or apartment blocks. There was also a new interest to live in Sotogrande on a permanent basis created by the fact that companies could now be managed through internet and so it was possible for company directors etc to live wherever they wanted. The International School of Sotogrande was also a major deciding point for those directors who had children.
The property and land prices were high already in Sotogrande but with all this added interest they rose even higher and were out of all proportion with other property prices in the surrounding area. The increased building activity and the increasing prices continued steadily and really peaked during 1999/2001 when selling property was the easiest job that any one could wish for. Buyers would ring from abroad and literally place reservation fees on properties without even having seen them - truly amazing, but this also had a lot to do with the changing of the Euro in 2002.
Well as we all know, 'what goes up must come down', 'nothing lasts forever' and finally the economic recession arrived to Sotogrande as well and in this instance Sotogrande has been no exception. Many of those buyers who were placing orders for properties over the phone from their well paid jobs have mostly lost their high incomes and in some cases even lost their jobs.
They are having to sell their properties because they can no longer keep up with the mortgage payments and in order to make their property seem more attractive to buy than the one for sale next door, the prices are being slashed to almost half of what they were. (It has to be noted though that this does not relate to the extremely rich property owners who are in no hurry to sell and so have not budged in their sale price)
But it is obvious that now is the time for any person, who is lucky enough to have some spare cash, to be able to pick up a bargain here in Sotogrande. One day when the recession is over, prices will begin to recover and rise again and the buyer who bought now will have ended up gaining a more valuable asset for the future.
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