Many industries tend to only focus on the positives and
ignore the negatives when the time comes for them to report their news. When it
comes to Spain, and especially the property industry in the country, this
optimism is only fair.
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| Spain is the best place to live in Europe |
The Spanish property market has been in a pretty bad place
for the past several years but the past 24 months have been great for the
industry. Spanish property prices reached their lowest point before slowly climbing back up. Mortgages were being approved more and the rates were fairer
and foreign investors entered the market once more, along with a rise in
domestic demand that was fuelled by the recovering job market and economy.
The past few months in particular have been great for the
country as it looks like there’s nothing but good news for the real estate
industry in Spain. It’s expected that property prices will continue to rise for
at least the next five years. The only potential pitfall was the Brexit vote
and, even though Britain voted leave, the Spanish economy, real estate
industry, and especially tourism industry was barely affected.
Last week figures from the EU statistics agency Eurostat
showed that Spanish property prices were on the up at a faster rate than the
Eurozone average. The Economy Minister would also confirm that of the €22
billion in foreign money that was spent in Spain in 2015, a whopping one-third
of it was spent on construction.
If this wasn’t good enough the Economy Minster Luis de
Guindos would revise his 2016 forecast for the Spanish economy on Sunday. He is
now suggesting that the Spanish GDP could rise by 2.9% this year, just above
the 2.7% he originally forecast.
De Guindos put this elevated estimate down to macroeconomic
projections which should be implemented before the next government institutes a
full budget. He is also confident about 2017 and suggests that even if the
Eurozone slows down it will not affect Spain much and that the country should
still see a GDP growth of around 2.4%.
Another piece of great news for Spain came from the
Institute of National Stastistics (INE). They reported over the weekend that
the number of tourists visiting Andalucía over the past 12 months had increased
by 18.1% year-over-year.
This increase is the highest out of all the autonomous
communities in Spain and gave further proof, if any were needed, that the Costa
del Sol area is in for a bumper summer this year. In May alone around one
million people visited the region. This summer is expected to break the record
set last year with an estimated 7 million people arriving.
While most of Europe seems to be facing the gloom of a
post-Brexit EU or the doom of terrorism Spain is looking bright and cheery this
summer and it’s not hard to see why with the wonderful climate and Mediterranean lifestyle and the cost of living in spain being so good. Its no wonder why so many Northern Europeans want to move to spain permanently.
