Spanish property market: the Costa del Sol leads the way says Tinsa

Property prices in Marbella rose 4.8 per cent between the first quarters of 2013 and 2014

New build properties selling off-plan… prices that have reached rock bottom and which in certain areas such as Marbella and Manilva are now on the rise again… plus increasing demand from foreign buyers are reason enough for Tinsa – which provides an index to house prices as well as other real estate information in Spain – to put the Costa del Sol at the forefront of the resurgence of Spain’s property market…

Tinsa’s Costa española 2014 report, which was presented in Málaga on 7 July, states that the current situation in Spain generally, is one of weak demand and falling prices – although already in the process of slowing down – with marked signs of an increase in activity in established areas of the Costa del Sol and the Costa Blanca.

Although the study points out that it’s too soon to talk of an overall recovery in housing construction in Spain, it does find evidence of ‘timid developer initiatives’, with an emphasis on well-located, quality new build developments in Marbella and Estepona aimed at foreign buyers, while according to Tinsa, developers have also been applying for building licences in both Mijas and Torremolinos.

In Manilva, property prices increased by 1.3 per cent between the first quarters of 2013 and 2014

The report goes on to say that so far as property prices are concerned, it’s very much a postcode lottery. In Cádiz, Huelva and Tarragona, for example, interannual price decreases of more than 10 per cent are still being recorded. On the Costa del Sol, however – where prices fell only by an average 1.1 per cent between the first quarters of 2013 and 2014 – it’s a different story. During the same period, in Marbella – which leads Spain’s national ranking – property prices rose by a substantial 4.8 per cent, while Manilva registered a rather more modest increase of 1.3 per cent.

But then, of course, various places in the province of Málaga are also among the Spanish municipalities where prices have dropped the most since the crisis took hold. Casares comes top of the league with an accumulated decrease of 59.7 per cent, while in Manilva, Estepona and Mijas prices are down by 50 per cent since 2008.

Tinsa forecasts an increase in property sales in 2014 of between 15 and 25 per cent, highlighting foreign demand, especially on the Costa del Sol where in the first quarter of this year overseas buyers accounted for a whopping 39.4 per cent of all registered sales.