Mark Stucklin
Nobody is buying holiday homes on the Costa Blanca anymore
Is this what you really want?
I read that holiday homes on the Costa Blanca aren’t selling so well these days, down 83% in 2 years, from 4,233 sales in 2006 to just 702 last year (sales by developers to non-resident Europeans).
Seems that the Costa Blanca is suffering the consequences of relying too heavily on British buyers, at least that’s what the article I read said. It’s also suffering the inevitable consequences of building lots of crap and trying to sell it for ridiculous prices, whilst trashing its coastline in the process.
Of course the weak Pound isn’t helping. Britons used to pay around 90,000 Pounds for a property costing 150,000 Euros in Spain. Now they have to pay around 136,000 pounds for the same thing.
Mea Culpa?
Seems that local developers are finally trying a bit of ever-so-light mea culpa, which us unusual for them. Ramón Jerez, President of Business and Construction Federation (Fecia), hinted to the local press that there might have been a touch of over-development in some areas. He says it must stop. It’s a bit late mate, and anyway, the market collapse has stopped it for now (it will happen again one day).
Jerez also suggests that developers should try asking their potential buyers around Europe what they want before starting to build. Radical stuff. Market research has been standard procedure in most industries for half a century, but Spanish developers are just waking up to it. You can tell they never used it before – just look what they did to their coast.