Currency exchange rates help Spanish property vendors returning to UK

Spain's real estate market may still be some way from recovery but some vendors are able to sell at much less than they bought and still turn a profit, it has been revealed.

At first glance it's tricky to work out how buying a villa in Spain in 2000 for €122,000 and selling in 2010 for €85,000 can be seen as anything but an unmitigated disaster. In actuality, the client's getting a bargain and the vendor's making a profit. That's because the vendor's British and currency exchanges work in their favour.

Spain's Costa Cálida, in particular the Camposol Golf Resort promoted by real estate agent Mercers, is currently replete with vendors returning to the UK who have the strength of the euro to their advantage. This is making the local property market more price sensitive than ever with asking prices tumbling yet still not to the detriment of the vendor making a good profit.

Spain Numbers Don't Add Up

If there is one thing European property experts agree on, it’s that housing data out of Spain is fairly worthless.

For example, the most recent report from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) shows the market bottoming out, down only 7 percent in the last year. Catalonia and Madrid saw drops of more than 11 percent, but the rate of declines is slowing, the data shows.

“But it is always worth pointing out that the official index is so detached from reality it is close to meaningless,” Spanish Property Insight’s Mark Stucklin reports. He cites numbers suggesting Murcia prices dropped only 1 percent in the last year. “That is farfetched, to put it mildly,” Stucklin said. .

Gerens Hill International Establishes New Real Estate Asset Management Company in spain

MARLTON, N.J. and MADRID, Spain, Dec. 21, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hill International (NYSE:HIL), the global leader in managing construction risk, announced today that a subsidiary company, Gerens Hill International S.A., has established a new majority-owned subsidiary company, Gerens Hill Gestion de Activos, S.A., that will be providing real estate asset management services.

Gerens Hill Gestion de Activos has entered into a three-year management agreement with another newly-formed company, Aliancia Zero, S.A., a real estate investment company entirely owned by nine Spanish financial institutions that has been organized with initial real estate assets of approximately $400 million.

"Gerens Hill has strong relationships with many of the largest financial institutions in Spain," said David L. Richter, Hill's President and Chief Operating Officer. "Gerens Hill initiated the development of Aliancia to help provide solutions to these institutions for the current property market," Richter added.

Some Areas Of Spainish Real Estate Improving Despite Five-Year Surplus

An estimated five year surplus in Spanish real estate is hindering recovery in some regions, while prices are beginning to rebound in other parts of the country. Prime properties in areas of high demand continue to attract buyers, typically mid- to long-range cash purchases intended for the owner's use, exemplifying the stability long synonymous with Spanish real estate. See the following article from Property Wire for more on this.

Spain property market
Property prices are starting to rise in some parts of Spain, according to a new report from one of the country’s largest savings banks.

The much awaited real estate recovery is underway in locations where there is no glut of property such as Cantabria, the Basque region, Asturias and La Rioja, says the report from Caixa Catalunya.

‘House and land prices have touched bottom in some cases. The adjustment is almost over, if not already,’ said Eduard Mendiluce, head of Caixa Catalunya’s property division Procam.

Spain Sees Endless Season For Political Scandal

Corruption has a long tradition in Spain. But lately, the country has experienced an explosion of scandals.

Hundreds of mayors and other officials across the country are being investigated for bribery and influence peddling, and police have seized assets worth billions of dollars. The government and the opposition agree that things have to change.

Boadilla del Monte, a small hill town about a half-hour west of Madrid, has achieved notoriety in Spain because of its former mayor, Arturo Gonzalez Panero. He was forced to resign earlier this year after being implicated in an influence-peddling network that extended to Madrid, Valencia and the Costa del Sol. A court in Madrid has frozen millions of dollars of his assets.

Spain takes over EU rotating presidency under new European Treaty

MADRID/BRUSSELS (EJP)---Spain took over the European Union rotating six-month presidency from Sweden on Friday, just a month after the Lisbon Treaty, which reformed the EU institutions, took effect.

Under this treaty, EU summits will be chaired by Herman Van Rompuy, the former Belgian Prime Minister who was named last month full-time President of the European Council along with the new EU foreign policy chief, Britain's Catherine Ashton.

But Spain, whose Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero promised to work to end Europe’s economic crisis, will steer other top meetings on the economy, environment and energy, and host summits with non-EU countries, like Israel.

Zapatero said Spain's main goal as EU president is "to fight for economic recovery, for recovery from the crisis, and make Europe an economy that is more and more productive, more and more innovative and more and more sustainable."