Spain Real Estate News

Burson-Marsteller (BM), headquartered in the United States and with offices in 67 countries worldwide, was employed by Spain's secretary of state for housing, Beatriz Corredor, to assist with the launch of Spain's international property roadshow that kicked off in London last week.

Since then it has emerged that BM, on behalf of Facebook, approached well-known blogger, Christopher Soghoian, urging him to investigate Google’s privacy policy in exchange for getting the piece published on influential sites such as The Huffington Post and The Washington Post.

BM has terminated its contract with Facebook but continues to work on behalf of the Spanish government, as its ministers attempt to pitch the sale of the country's 700,000 unsold holiday homes to European and Russian investors in a bid to kickstart a flailing economy.

BM's PR consultants were in attendance at the first roadshow event, held in London last week, and were responsible for identifying and contacting local media and raising publicity for the event entitled:"Look. Think. Invest. The Spanish Real Estate Market in your hands."

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

To an audience of UK investment fund managers and financial advisors, Spain's minister for housing Jose Blanco and secretary of state for housing Beatriz Corredor attempted to show that Spain, although struck by the crisis, is a solid economy showing signs of recovery.

The message was directed at investors in the Spanish housing market in the hope of filling a surplus supply of approximately 700,000 homes, the majority built along the southern Spanish coastline.

The presentation conceded that over-development had taken place but that prices had adjusted accordingly.

The national average house price decrease was 25 per cent, and in certain areas in Andalucia prices had fallen by as much as 49 per cent, investors were told.

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

A publicity roadshow aimed at encouraging foreigners to buy Spanish holiday homes has been branded "an insult" by groups of Britons caught in legal difficulties over the status and funding of their properties on the Costas.

Spanish housing minister, Beatriz Corredor, and public works minister, José Blanco, visit Britain this week at the start of a six-nation tour. The Spanish authorities said the ministers will use the roadshow to encourage individuals and institutional investors to buy some of the estimated 1m new homes lying empty in Spain.

"We must revive the holiday housing market to speed up the 'digestion of stock'," said a Spanish government spokesman, while Blanco claimed the exercise will "highlight the strengths of our economy [and] transparency and legal certainty of our planning legislation".

However, protest bodies such as the Spanish Bank Guarantees Petition and the Finca Parcs Action Group are organising online petitions calling for the roadshow to instead address long-standing grievances on the alleged refusal of Spanish banks to honour aval bancario, or bank guarantees.

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