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Facebook: @The<strong>Weekender</strong>Spain<br />
FRIDAY 1ST NOVEMBER 2019 29<br />
Post Brexit optimism<br />
ONE of the great discussions<br />
over the last three<br />
years over Brexit and<br />
Spain has been what kind<br />
of an effect that the impending<br />
departure of the<br />
UK from the European<br />
Union has been having<br />
on British purchases of<br />
Spanish property.<br />
The Spanish property<br />
portal, idealista, and it’s<br />
president Juan Antonio<br />
Gómez-Pintado says that<br />
there has been something<br />
of a myth that even in the<br />
immediate pre-2016 referendum<br />
days, that British<br />
buyers are crucial in the<br />
Spanish market.<br />
Gómez-Pintado says that<br />
British buyers acquired<br />
8,500 units in Spain out of a<br />
by Alex Trelinski<br />
total of 513,000 sales transactions<br />
that occurred in the<br />
period between April 2017<br />
and April 2018, according<br />
to official figures from the<br />
Spanish builders association,<br />
the APCE.<br />
The APCE says that before<br />
the referendum, sales<br />
were at 10,000 properties to<br />
Brits, meaning that Brexit<br />
has only seen a decrease of<br />
1,500 properties in the whole<br />
country.<br />
After analysing the figures,<br />
the APCE says that<br />
clearly serious damage to<br />
the market would be caused<br />
if somehow Brits didn’t buy<br />
any homes in Spain, and<br />
they’ve factored an extreme<br />
& SOLD!<br />
When it comes to selling your<br />
worst-case scenario of a 50<br />
per cent drop in sales to<br />
British citizens in a post-<br />
Brexit world.<br />
It’s a situation that the<br />
real estate sector claims<br />
not to be very worried about<br />
according to Gómez-Pintado<br />
of idealista, because it<br />
would still be a tiny percentage<br />
compared to total<br />
sales, though there would<br />
be regional variations.<br />
“Brexit will not be a national<br />
problem, but a provincial<br />
one,” said one APCE<br />
member, and another figure<br />
stated the obvious that areas<br />
like the Costa Blanca or the<br />
Balearic Islands would suffer<br />
more after the UK quits<br />
the EU.<br />
The APCE also produced<br />
additional figures to say<br />
that they would look forward<br />
to the future with<br />
confidence post-Brexit,<br />
based on the percentage of<br />
property purchases made<br />
by foreigners in the last<br />
fiscal year (April 2018 to<br />
April 2019).<br />
Foreign sales have actually<br />
gone up by nearly a per<br />
cent, despite the fact that<br />
the British share of the cake<br />
has gone down.<br />
The proportion of British<br />
buys now stands at 13.80<br />
per cent, which is way down<br />
from the historic high of 37<br />
per cent in 2008.<br />
Also down, with nothing<br />
at all to do with Brexit,<br />
are the French, Germans<br />
and Italians.<br />
While traditional buyers<br />
are falling other nationalities<br />
such as Moroccans,<br />
Romanians, and Chinese<br />
are breaking records or<br />
approaching the highs<br />
they reached before the<br />
recession.<br />
Moroccans, for example,<br />
accounted for 6.14 per cent<br />
of deals in the first three<br />
months of the year, making<br />
them the fourth most active<br />
nationality in the purchase<br />
of properties in Spain.<br />
It’s their highest figure<br />
since 2008, and though they<br />
have a long way to go to catch<br />
up other traditional buying<br />
countries like Britain,<br />
it is another indication that<br />
new markets are expanding<br />
for Spanish property<br />
sales.<br />
property, choose people who<br />
care. List your property with us...<br />
+34 965 270 636<br />
info@coastandcountry.properties<br />
www.coastandcountry.properties
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