Global media note Brits' rekindled love affair with Spanish property

Read all about it: Spain’s property market has returned to rude health, and the world’s media has noticed.

The media loves a good bad news story. The more lurid the headline, the more it lurches out at you from the newsstand. The more dramatic the detail, the more engrossed the reader. Living vicariously through the whims of the world is what people do, and when things go bad, readership rates rise.

Not 12 months ago this trend certainly held true for the Spanish property market, with the UK media particularly keen to stick the boot in at the merest whiff of trouble. From Brits fleeing the Costas in their droves to pensioner expats being issued with demolition notices, anything that could be deemed damaging to Spain’s property industry was given prominence in much of the national media.

But what a difference a year makes…

Buoyed by an economy that has confounded its critics, and boosted by a steady stream of British buyers who refused to be put off by the scare stories, the Spanish property market has not only found its feet, but is striding purposefully forward with the kind of confidence that would make a tabloid editor weep.

And the global media, to its credit, has begun to notice. At the weekend, the Sunday Times ran a gushing, lengthy article in its popular home and style section titled Spain reigns again, in which it lifted the lid on the dramatic return to good health of the Spanish property market.

The article praises Spain’s economic reform, its perennially world-leading tourism industry and Spaniards’ never-say-die attitude for helping to engineer the ideal conditions for a glorious property recovery. Then, enter stage right – the Brits.

British buyers have stayed loyal to Spain during the downturn, their trust only wavering during the depths of the economic crisis, and only then because millions of Brits themselves were beginning to feel the pinch at home.

Yet today, with the pound at an eight-year-high against the euro, and with Spanish property prices having fallen by around 40 per cent since the heady pre-crash days of 2007, real estate in Spain once again looks like one of the most attractive investments a Brit can make.

This renewed interest in the market is different from before on one crucial point – the get-rich-quick buyers are nowhere to be seen. The days of buying off-plan and ‘flipping’ a property for an unearned profit are long gone. Today’s investors are savvy, patient and drawn to Spain because of the things the country has always done well: a beautiful climate, great scenery, a solid infrastructure, a transparent real estate market, affordable quality and the widest choice of property and financing options anywhere in Europe.

In the USA, leading news outlet Bloomberg has also picked up on this trend, reporting earlier this month the noticeable upsurge in foreign buyers snapping up Spain’s beachfront real estate, while the UK’s Times newspaper – the Sunday Times’ big brother – reported in February that Sun, Sea and Sangria is luring British buyers back to Spain.

Even the Daily Telegraph, which has often sharpened its most pointed knives on the downfall of the wider Spanish economy, noticed at the end of 2014 that the time might now be right to invest in a Spanish holiday home, while its regular expat series of blogs and opinion pieces has exhibited a noticeable thawing in its attitude towards Spanish property in recent weeks.

With the most cynical sections of the global media now – even reluctantly – on board, it would appear that Spain’s property market really is back on an even, attractive keel.

But don’t take our word for it – simply scour the tabloids and broadsheets this weekend for further proof, because if there’s one thing the media loves more than a bad news story, it’s the chance to jump on the bandwagon and say they were first!