# house prices



## fatsam (Nov 23, 2012)

hello everyone,i am new to this forum so apologies if this is in the wrong place
i have been looking on several Spanish property websites,some bank resales aswell.
I am thinking of buying a holiday home (only small one) in southern/eastern Spain,some of the advertised properties seem very good value for money,the question is,in your opinion are property prices going to go down further or level off.
i just would like to get peoples opinions as i read that Spanish banks will get a"black" mark against them if they still have large volumes of properties in 2013,thus prices will be lowered more to sell?
many thanks


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

In my opinion property prices have yet to reach their true levels but it is very difficult to say what that should be. Some people I know connected with the housing market think it has yet to fall a further 50% particularly as so many houses still have pre crisis prices and others think that 15 - 20% is more realistic. But fall they surely must; just how much??


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

If you see a house that you like and can afford the price why wait and see if it becomes cheaper .. someone else might not wait, I bought my house last year this year it might have been cheaper but it was the house I wanted so worth every penny.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Sensible advice unless you think you might want to move again only to find your house is worth considerably less than when you bought it. If you think you won't move again then go for it!!


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

thrax said:


> Sensible advice unless you think you might want to move again only to find your house is worth considerably less than when you bought it. If you think you won't move again then go for it!!




That could be said about any house at any time... I bought in Scotland in 1993 sold in 2011 and took a hammering 18 years later.


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## mike kelly (Aug 12, 2009)

you can never tell how buying a house will work. Renting has a lot to be said for it!


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

That's why we rent atm. We don't intend to buy for maybe another five years. We have a very good landlord which makes a huge difference in the rental market. Our previous landlord was slightly worse than an Aardvark's poo......


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## fatsam (Nov 23, 2012)

thanks everyone,some good points there seen a 3 bed apt very near beach in Valencia area,needs a tidy up but 15k euro.that seems such good value,cant see it getting lower


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

mike kelly said:


> you can never tell how buying a house will work. Renting has a lot to be said for it!


Yes it has.
But Fatsam is looking for a holiday home rather than moving here.

*Fatsam*
If you are looking to buy a holiday home with an eye to investment for the future, I would say wait a while, unless you are looking to buy a property to holiday in next summer.

If you make a trip here, you can visit some of the local banks, where they have leaflets of property for sale (most of which is probably repossessed).
These are not the cheapest properties as the banks want to make a return on their investments, but they are properties that the banks have previously given mortgages on, so at least they are legal.

As for property websites, there are still many vendors out there who are looking for unrealistic prices, so a bit of negotiation is needed.

And there are still plenty of hovels out there with hopeful vendors.

A few years ago, it was worth buying a so-called 'renovation project' for a good price, but now, why bother when you can purchase a modernised house at the price the hovel used to sell at?


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## fatsam (Nov 23, 2012)

thanks another good point,i will keep looking at the moment and will come out in the new year and spend a week looking around.i definitely like the idea of having a property out in spain i love it there


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

fatsam said:


> thanks everyone,some good points there seen a 3 bed apt very near beach in Valencia area,needs a tidy up but 15k euro.that seems such good value,cant see it getting lower


That certainly seems like a realistic price.


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## Lolito (Aug 25, 2012)

Although our house has gone down in price almost 50% in the last 5 years, I still think it has to go down a bit more, it was too expensive to begin with, ridiculous. So we are renting it. 

We are ´testing´ it, and so far so good, we have renewed for another year... in the meantime, the prices will go down, and if we buy it in the end, the owner agreed to take the money we have paid in rent, from the final price. 

It is not a proper ´rent to buy´(opcion a compra) as we don´t have any contract as such regarding this, but I am sure if you find the house you like, you can come to an agreement with the owner and rent it for a bit to see if you´ll like it enough to buy it.


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

MaidenScotland said:


> If you see a house that you like and can afford the price why wait and see if it becomes cheaper .. someone else might not wait, I bought my house last year this year it might have been cheaper but it was the house I wanted so worth every penny.


Abloutely and totally agree with you.We have been here 18years so imagine how much we would have paid in rent.The mind boggles.I suppose in hindsight we came here at the right time and bought at the right time then sold at the height of the boom,moved a 100K inland and our profits bought us a far superior property to what we had on the coast and we feel more at home where we are than we ever did on the coast.Renting,all you are doing is putting some nice landlord more money into his bankaccount than he has now.Rent is just a noose round the neck.Has to be paid month in and month out.You can hang a few pictures on the wall,a few plants on the patio but at the end of the day it's never yours.
It's so nice to walk out of the front door and bump into people and know their names and 99.9% of them are Spanish which is something we never had on the coast.The only one downside of being in a small village is that you can't upset the applecart because you soon learn a lot of the families are related in one way or another but that's part and parcel of village life but personally I would not change it for the world.So, if you have a few bob spare and you see a property go for it and it wiill be your little piece of heaven and not some landlords.It's possible some of the people are telling you to rent because they have not got the money to buy their own place.


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## mike kelly (Aug 12, 2009)

soulboy said:


> .It's possible some of the people are telling you to rent because they have not got the money to buy their own place.


Or they have bought their own place and are watching it decrease in value by the month.


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

mike kelly said:


> Or they have bought their own place and are watching it decrease in value by the month.




It only decreases if you are wanting to sell...


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Each to their own.

I'm very glad I rent in Spain rather than own and I know of people who really need to go back to the UK but can't because they can't sell and others who have lost tens of thousands because they had to sell. 

I can quite understand the argument for buying rather than renting but it doesn't suit everybody.

Many (including me) would see owning a house in Spain in the current climate as an expensive millstone around the neck.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

jimenato said:


> Each to their own.
> 
> I'm very glad I rent in Spain rather than own and I know of people who really need to go back to the UK but can't because they can't sell and others who have lost tens of thousands because they had to sell.
> 
> ...


agreed

at various times over the years we nearly bought a property - even as recently as 18 months ago!!

right this minute, I'm glad we didn't - IF everything went wrong & my work dried up, we could upsticks easily if wee needed to


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

mike kelly said:


> Or they have bought their own place and are watching it decrease in value by the month.


Just worked out,if we had rented in total I reckon we would have paid 90 to a 100 thousand in rent.I certainly know which position I would rather be in,owning my own home.Sod making some greedy landlord rich.Yes there are people losing money but sorry to say they are the ones who jumped on this bandwagon too late.When we bought our home we bought it as a family home and not some get rich quick scheme.If you want to and do your homework correctly there are some bloody good bargains to be had if you are young enough and want it as a long term family commitment.As for seeing the value decrease month by month sorry to say you are talking out of your backside but there again you might be in a position where you cannot afford to buy and some of the people who are stuck with houses bought at the height of the boom and want back what they paid for them but at the end of the day it's horses for courses.


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## fatsam (Nov 23, 2012)

again many fair points,just to let people know i am thinking of buying not to make money but i want a little place i can get to easily and enjoy the weather,people ,lifestyle etc etc lets hope something comes up next year when i come over


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

MaidenScotland said:


> It only decreases if you are wanting to sell...


I've heard people say that and I disagree. House values rise and fall whether you want to sell them or not. It's just that unless you want to sell, it doesn't matter.


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

jimenato said:


> I've heard people say that and I disagree. House values rise and fall whether you want to sell them or not. It's just that unless you want to sell, it doesn't matter.




Your home is what it is worth to you...


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

jimenato said:


> Each to their own.
> 
> I



The only answer that really makes sense. Everybody has different needs. Different worries. Different goals. 

Everybody has to look at themselves and make the choice that suits them. 

Some people here want a large villa with a pool. Others want a tiny studio apartment. Some want country. Some want big city.

I'll guess and bet even today there are homes going up in price. There are homes that twenty years from now will be lower then today. How can there be one answer?


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## mike kelly (Aug 12, 2009)

NickZ said:


> The only answer that really makes sense. Everybody has different needs. Different worries. Different goals.
> 
> Everybody has to look at themselves and make the choice that suits them.
> 
> ...


very true, prices vary so much by object type and location. I think there is value to be had now in big cities but the problem on he costa is oversupply.
This new residencia for pisos plan could have a big impact, especially in Madrid and Barcelona.


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## mike kelly (Aug 12, 2009)

soulboy said:


> Just worked out,if we had rented in total I reckon we would have paid 90 to a 100 thousand in rent.


when you buy, you must consider the amount of money you will pay in interest. In the early years of a mortgage, the majority of your mortgage will be interest with very little capital being paid off



soulboy said:


> As for seeing the value decrease month by month sorry to say you are talking out of your backside


no need for such rudeness


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

mike kelly said:


> when you buy, you must consider the amount of money you will pay in interest. In the early years of a mortgage, the majority of your mortgage will be interest with very little capital being paid off
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry to disappoint you old son but when we came here we were cash buyers although I will admit when we first looked at properties with different estate agents quite a majority were giving us all the crap to take out a mortgage so that we could get a better property but the other half being the shrewd yorkshire lass that she is said no way Jose.A lot of these people working for these agents were on commission only so it was in their interests to sell you the dearest property they could.We bought a very modest Spanish townhouse,nothing to write home about and we bought direct from the owners which saved us a few million pesetas but at least it was ours and at the time we didn't realise there was going to be this property boom and will be honest with you we did jump on the bandwagon and in the space of 7years we trebled our money. What I say to people now is if you see a property whether it be house,villa or whatever go for it but be prepared to be in it for the long haul and if you have family and anything happens to you at least you have something to leave your children and not making some landlord richer than he already is. As for being rude to you I just found your comments about properties decreasing in value month after month laughable.Yes they have decreased but nothing like you are trying to make out and as other posters have said some properties were vastly overpriced to start with but we are now starting to see some realistic prices.No at the end of the day I don't chuffing want to make some landlord rich and have absolutely nothing to show for it.If I went back to Blighty tomorrow put our home on the market for a ridiculous amount of money which I know we could sell to Spaniards in the village at least we would have a few euros in our back pockets.Now if we had rented we would go back with absolutely jack nothing.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

.Now if we had rented we would go back with absolutely jack nothing.[/QUOTE]

Agree with much of your post but just a comment on renting...

When we left the UK we sold all properties we possessed...We had commercial and residential properties in the UK and overseas.
We kept furniture, clothes, books and personal items. 
No worries about falling property prices, repairs, being stuck with unpleasant neighbours or having a fish processing factory built in the vicinity. 
If we don't like somewhere we can just call up Pickfords.

We are unrepentant SKINs. My son and dil are better off than I've ever been or will be. So unencumbered by any property worries we are living off our capital and income and thorougly enjoying ourselves in our spacious house with large garden and pool...a house we could never afford to buy even if we wished to.

Yes, we pay a large sum annually to our Austrian landlord -a very good, fair, conscientious landlord too, the type of landlords we were when we had rental properties. We could buy a three-bed town house on a mortgage for the rent we pay.

But in our situation, why? Certainly not to leave property for my son and dil. They already have property here and don't need our money. My dil's parents are old and very well-off and more dutiful to their offspring than I.

I'm sure there are others in our situation and good luck to them. Renting is perfect for us. When we are too old and decrepit for our current home we'll downsize to a 'bungalow' or hopefully equally spacious garden apartment. No worries about being stuck with an unsaleable home, unscrupulous agents and lawyers and so on.

With property as most other things in life...horses for courses.


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## Lolito (Aug 25, 2012)

Renting is the thing to do right now. It is silly to buy now when prices are going down and will be going down for a while. Whoever said that it does not make a difference if you are not selling to speculate, is rubbish. 

I am sure everyone here would be very happy if they could save 10,000 euros in just a few months by renting for at least a year, rather than buy a property today. This is not to speculate, it is just to be clever and save some money in the process that you can use for something else. 

I have seen the house of my dreams... and I DO HAVE the money to buy it, but only in the last 12 months it has gone down by 40,000... (in those 12 months I only paid 5,500 renting). Therefore even if I buy it today, I would have save a lot of money, that I could have used to better my life here. It is not speculating. It is just being aware of the current situation in Spain.

Just plain maths!!


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

Mary,you might not want to leave your son something but there are hundreds of people out there who would love to leave their family or children something when they pass away and moving from one place to another at my age in life is not an option as what we have now is our home and not some landlords and it gives me peace of mind to think if something happens to me that the other half has a roof over her head and not the worry of some landlord coming along and saying he is upping the rent.Have to agree there are people stuck with unsaleable homes because of them bneing vastly overpriced but there are still a small amount of properties being sold because they are realistically priced and like I said if people buy them they have to be in it for the longhaul.Yes 18years here 90 to a 100thousand in rent and absolutely nothing to show for it.It does not take a maths teacher to work out where I would rather be.The good times will return but when is anybody's guess but I would hate to be in the position to keep on moving on and on and on.We have made our home in the village and I would not swap it for the costa any day but I do agree horses for courses.Keep paying your rent Mary and putting a smile on your landlords face.Bit cold for a dip in the pool today.LOL.


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## tarot650 (Sep 30, 2007)

Lolito said:


> I have seen the house of my dreams... and I DO HAVE the money to buy it, but only in the last 12 months it has gone down by 40,000... (in those 12 months I only paid 5,500 renting). Therefore even if I buy it today, I would have save a lot of money, that I could have used to better my life here. It is not speculating. It is just being aware of the current situation in Spain.
> 
> Just plain maths!!


If it's gone down 40thousand in the last 12months it was grossly over priced to start with.In some respects this is down to owners and also estate agents.You say you have the money to buy it,go in with a cheeky offer you never know they might accept but there again they might tell you to sling your hook or ask them if you can rent it with a view to buy as thats another option.Go on make a cheeky offer you never know you might end up with the house of your dreams.


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## Lolito (Aug 25, 2012)

It was 243,000 in November last year. 

Six months later, it was 199,000 , so it has gone down 44,000. The agents called us to let us know of this big price change. Still we thought it was overpriced and we said that no-one would buy for any more than 160,000. So we sort of made an offer of 160,000 and they laughed at the offer. 

Fine. No worries. 

Now it is gone down to 160,000 and again, the agents called us to let us know. We told him very clearly that we are renting and happy to keep renting, and that maybe, we would consider putting an offer sometime in Spring or early summer, too horrid to move in the middle of winter!. 

He said ´it would have been sold by then at this cheap price´... but I know it won´t. 

Now I am thinking a good price would be 140,000 but we are not really bothered right now. It was the first house we saw that made us go ´WooooooW´, but since then we have seen 2 or 3 more (we are easily pleased!, lol!). So we are going to wait a little bit more and see what happens. 

Although it sounds really awful at this moment in time, the crisis is somehow a good thing for us at this precise moment if we want to buy and we have to take the opportunity to get something for life for the right price.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

soulboy said:


> Mary,you might not want to leave your son something but there are hundreds of people out there who would love to leave their family or children something when they pass away and moving from one place to another at my age in life is not an option as what we have now is our home and not some landlords and it gives me peace of mind to think if something happens to me that the other half has a roof over her head and not the worry of some landlord coming along and saying he is upping the rent.Have to agree there are people stuck with unsaleable homes because of them bneing vastly overpriced but there are still a small amount of properties being sold because they are realistically priced and like I said if people buy them they have to be in it for the longhaul.Yes 18years here 90 to a 100thousand in rent and absolutely nothing to show for it.It does not take a maths teacher to work out where I would rather be.The good times will return but when is anybody's guess but I would hate to be in the position to keep on moving on and on and on.We have made our home in the village and I would not swap it for the costa any day but I do agree horses for courses.Keep paying your rent Mary and putting a smile on your landlords face.Bit cold for a dip in the pool today.LOL.


Well, we entertained a friend to coffee by the pool which was very pleasant...

You miss the point, though....we have sufficient capital - OH has more capital than I -and we both enjoy income from it and other sources so we don't to have to worry about rent increases which as long as we're here won't happen. In fact, because we are such good tenants, paying our rent in two instalments in advance each year, we have negotiated a decrease in our rent of 500 euros a month since we moved into this house four years ago. Our landlord constantly invites me to be his guest in Austria...we are the first tenants he''s had who pay the rent!!! If we said we were moving he'd probably lie down in front of the removal van...We have no intention of moving on until we're past climbing up the stairs or climbing down into the pool. WE know we're here for as long as we like...the house was bought cash many years ago and our landlord is a wealthy man who has other property in Spain he leaves empty as he had bad experiences with non-paying tenants.

I can see absolutely no reason for us buying rather than renting. It's good to have a cushion of capital, even if the return on it is measly. We both have other sources of income.

Best of all, if we go on a mad spending spree and end up totally skint my dil has said we can live in their property which they rarely use.

So...in our situation why buy an inferior property when we can rent something a bit 'grander'? We have capital to enable us to buy ...but not to buy the kind of house we lived in in Prague and in the UK. Why downsize when you retire?
My first house I bought in the UK was a three bedroom townhouse....That was when I was in my early twenties, sadly quite a while ago...No going back. The house we lived in in the UK was a detached cottage over two hundred and fifty years old, spacious and picturesque. A flat or town house is all we could afford in Spain as we wouldn't want a mortgage and we lived in our cottage for thirty years. I've tried living in a piso and hated it.

OK, we're lucky, perhaps. But I can't believe there aren't many others here in the same position.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Incidentally, soulboy, we were landlords - we rented out properties in the UK and Canada for many years....So maybe it's payback time for us now


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

The thing is it is all down to what rocks *your* particular boat. 

SWMBO is 18 years younger than I, so there's a good chance that she will outlive me (I don't see her throwing herself on my funeral pyre!), and we also have her mother living with us who may even outlive both of us!. It may well be that when my ticket expires that she will no longer be able to do much in the way of teaching or translating especially if her mother requires constant attention. The pensions she will receive from UK and from Spain plus the widows element of my pensions will not equate to what I get now so we need to ensure that she is not left with a constant drain on her finances which she would have if we were renting. 

So, since we could afford to buy our house outright and the basic outgoings for local taxes, heat, light and water are not exorbitant, buying was right for us. 

As somebody said earlier, it's horses for courses.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> so we need to ensure that she is not left with a constant drain on her finances which she would have if we were renting.
> 
> .


People tend to forget issues like that. 

You also need to include the natural currency hedge that owning is. It's okay paying rent in € if you earn € but if your income isn't in Euro you risk your rent going up in spite of the housing market.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

NickZ said:


> People tend to forget issues like that.
> 
> You also need to include the natural currency hedge that owning is. It's okay paying rent in € if you earn € but if your income isn't in Euro you risk your rent going up in spite of the housing market.


But surely you'd agree that is totally irrelevant if like us you have sufficient capital plus regular income to cushion all that. Our income is entrely in sterling and we buy large amounts of euros when the rate is favourable. 

I cannot think of one argument in favour of people in our situation buying property. Having owned commercial and domestic properties all my adult life I'm so happy not to have to worry about repairs, bad tenants, depreciation and so on. I've done all that and I want a peaceful stres free retirement.

We were lucky in that we sold our properties before the crisis. Not so lucky in that our capital was hit by lower interest rates than we expected. OH inherited a sizeable sum to add to the capital from the property sales. 

I had to go to Trafico in La Linea this morning and on my way along the A7 I saw many apartments and town houses for sale at prices we could afford to buy cash. Some were attractive. But that style of living may suit some but it's not what we were looking for when we came to Spain.

The bottom line for us is that as I said, we have a house we could move into tomorrow if we wished to, that belonging to son and dil. But we prefer the larger house sse live in and we are not yet at the stage where we need help from the family - I doubt we ever will be, financially at least.

So we are happily -very happily- paying very many thousands of euros each year for a lifestyle we think we deserve in our retirement, having between us worked for over seventy years and having during that time given well-paid employment to many people and rented homes at affordable rents to others.

In short...I think we deserve it! Buying a house shouldn't be the be-all and end-all.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> But surely you'd agree that is totally irrelevant if like us you have sufficient capital plus regular income to cushion all that. Our income is entrely in sterling and we buy large amounts of euros when the rate is favourable.
> 
> 
> In short...I think we deserve it! Buying a house shouldn't be the be-all and end-all.


On the first point I think people always think that. Then something happens 

On the second point absolutely.


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