British Holidaymakers Spent an Average of €48 Million per Day in Spain Last Year

British Holidaymakers Spent an Average of €48 Million per Day in Spain Last Year

Brits continue to flock to the Costa del sol 

Everyone knows that Brits love heading to Spain when they’re choosing a destination in the sun. It seems the Brits weren’t content with just being the main property investors and tourist group for Spain in 2017, as they were also – sort of – the biggest spenders.

As a collective British holidaymakers were spending an average of €48 million a day in Spain, which works out at around €2 million EACH HOUR. All in all, this figure accounts for 20.1% of all tourist spending in the country in 2017. Tourism spending reached a total of €86.82 billion in Spain, with Brits spending around €17.42 billion of that.

German tourists were barely spending more than Brits pre head, but their overall €12.2 billion spent in Spain puts them below the British. The reason for this was that there were more Brits than Germans in Spain 2017, with around 18.78 million Brits and 11.89 million Germans visiting.

French and Scandinavian tourists threw another €7 billion each into the Spanish economy last year, leading to tourism accounting for 11% of the GDP for the country; meaning tourism is one of the most important industries in Spain. 

The data comes to us from the Ministry of Tourism in Spain and shows just how important it is that Spain continues attracting city breakers, sun-seekers, hikers, golfers, and culture vultures to their shores.

Overall, a total of over 81 million people visited Spain during 2017, representing an annual increase of 8.6%.

Data Shows January Spanish Home Values up 3.6%

2018 is a perfect time to buy costa del sol property

Data Shows January Spanish Home Values up 3.6%

Statistics published by Spanish property valuation firm Tinsa this week show the average home in Spain was worth around 3.6% more at the end of January 2018 compared to January 2017. 

With the increase of between 5-6% in 2017 – depending on the metric – signs are strong that 2018 will be another positive year for Spanish property. 

The data from Tinsa highlighted not just the nationwide average increase of 3.6% but also different regional variances. The data showed that property prices were up over 5% in the larger cities and provincial capitals of Spain during January, with an increase of around 4.1% across the Balearic and Canary islands.

Average prices increased around 3% for most of the Mediterranean coast, which is just below the national average. This is a reflection of the fact that demand for coastal properties is generally at its lowest in the winter months. Tinsa believes that home prices across the Mediterranean will reach above the national average as the summer sets in. 

An interesting note is that while the data from Tinsa doesn’t reveal the average selling price of Spanish homes for January, it does say that home values have reached the averages of June 2013, which was a time when the market faced a number of price corrections. 

Things were moving downwards back then while they are moving upwards today, and substantially at that. Home sales are increasing by an encouraging amount; 11-15% over the past few years. The average mortgage loan amount is also steadily increasing.

New Estepona Apartments offer Luxury Urban Living By the Sea on the Costa del Sol

Infinity right in the heart of the city

New Estepona Apartments offer Luxury Urban Living By the Sea on the Costa del Sol 

It was just last week when Residencial Infinity – the latest Developmental – was announced. Demand and interest is already through the roof though and units are being sold at a rapid rate.

Top quality development, contact us for more details

Residencial Infinity Offers an Incredible Location on the Main Avenue of Estepona’s Town Centre

Estepona – situated around 20 minutes west of Marbella – is among the top seaside resorts along the Costa del Sol and Residencial Infinity is in the town centre. This means that those living in Residencial Infinity are never very far away from the services and amenities they need. The stunning Blue Flag-award-winning La Rada Beach is just four minutes away on foot too.

Residencial Infinity Offers Signature Contemporary Design

This is one of the most idyllic locations you can find. The Residencial Infinity building houses 112 luxury 2-and-3-bed apartments with ultra modern designs. Each apartment has a private terrace and tenants can enjoy underground parking and storage.

Residencial Infinity Offers High Quality Fixtures and Fittings

The apartments are spacious, filled with natural light, and boast high quality fixtures and fittings. They are complemented with exclusive onsite communal facilities such as the rooftop solarium – complete with infinity pool, sunbathing deck, and incredible views of the nearby ocean – along with a gym, green zones, sauna, bicycle room, play area for children, and so much more.

The building licence has been secured and the project is set to be completed by the first quarter of 2020. The best part is that prices start out at just €229,950. Check out the project for yourself here! Contact us today and we will send you everything.

2017 Sees Nine-Year High in Spanish Property Sales

Southern Spain is truly back.. 

2017 Sees Nine-Year High in Spanish Property Sales

The National Institute of Statistics in Spain (INE) has published the latest provisional residential property sales figures for 2017 which show last year saw a nine-year high for total property transactions. 

This means that 2017 has become the most significant year for the Spanish property market since 2008, which was when the bubble burst and the crash began, leaving the real estate industry in a state that it has taken years to recover from.

Signs have been suggesting that the property market in Spain has been recovering since 2013, but this latest data marks the first time that the market has reached pre-crash conditions. Property sales figures increased across all 17 autonomous regions of Spain, and the 14.6% nationwide increase over 2016 sales figures left the total figure at 464,423 homes sold in 2017. 

This is in stark contrast to the 312,000 homes changing hands in Spain during 2012, which was when sales started bottoming out at the height of the recession. 2017 ended on a positive note as well, as the 32,211 transactions recorded for last December was an increase of 9.2% over December of 2016. It’s also around twice the notary data published recently that estimated sales would increase 4.5% in December. 

The fastest-growing region of Spain last year was Castilla-La Mancha, which saw an impressive increase in property sales of 24.7% compared to 2016. This is an area that doesn’t usually bring in foreign buyers, suggesting that a large part of the uptick in the Spanish real estate sector is caused by domestic recovery. 

Foreign buyers still remain an important part of Spanish real estate though, accounting for around 15% of home buying activity in 2017. Of this, Brits were responsible for around a fifth of all sales to foreign investors.

Ryanair to Open 29 New Routes to Spain this Winter

More great news for Spain

Ryanair to Open 29 New Routes to Spain this Winter

Irish budget airline Ryanair is set to add 29 extra routes to Spain, leaving them with over 500 routes to and from Spain.

Spain remains a popular destination for spending the summer in the sun and this popularity will only increase with the news that Ryanair are set to open 29 new routes to Spain this year. This will bring Ryanair up to 500 routes, and comes at the perfect time as Spanish tourism is flying quite high as it is. 

Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary explained the reasoning behind the increase in routes, saying that Spain was one of the most important markets for the airline. He explained that around 27% of Ryanair’s traffic is related to Spain, which is no doubt important to the company. 

Key highlights of the additions include extra flights between Seville and Edinburgh, Bristol, Rabat and Tangier in Morocco, and Venice. The extra connections to Barcelona will see flights to Burgundy in France and Palermo in Italy, while Palma de Majorca is set to welcome flights from Milan, Rome, and Dusseldorf. 

Alicante is set to offer a connection to Newquay in England, Gdansk in Poland, and Bologna in Italy, along with domestic flights to Seville. 

Ryanair will be operating flights in 26 Spanish airports after the expansion, handling over 41 million passengers each year, which is a major share of the overall tourism market of Spain. 

Spain registered a massive increase in low-cost air traffic to the country with a 13.7% increase.

Holiday Price Rise Next Year According to Thomas Cook

Spanish Popularity My Lead to 5% Holiday Price Rise Next Year According to Thomas Cook

Malaga airport has broken all records again for

tourists visiting the Costa Del Sol 

Leading travel agent Thomas Cook told British holidaymakers that the average trip to Spain in 2018 will cost around 5-10% more than it did compared to last year because of the increased demand and the pound being weaker.

As British, Irish, and Scandinavian holidaymakers begin to forgo other areas of the Mediterranean due to the threat of terrorism, Spain has seen record numbers of visitors. The official data shows that 2017 was the best year ever for Spanish tourism. This increase in demand also means that supply may have trouble keeping up however. This is why Thomas Cook believes holidays may be up to 10% more expensive in 2018.

Thomas Cook remarked that there was evidence holidaymakers will continue to snub Egypt and Turkey – despite the resorts in those countries being cheaper than Spanish resorts. Safety will always win over affordability, according to the travel agent. While the pound may weaken against the euro even more next year, the amount of British visitors going to Spain in 2018 isn’t likely to change, according to Thomas Cook Chief Executive Peter Fankhauser.

The executive also added that Spanish hoteliers are to take advantage of the unique position Spain is in by increasing their prices, but did add that many of them would use the additional profits to improve their facilities and expand upon them to guarantee long-term gains over short-term profits.

Monthly Sales Figures for Spanish Property Top 40,000

Monthly Sales Figures for Spanish Property Top 40,000

The Costa Del Sols continues to grow in property

valuation which is great news 

An analysis of Spanish property sales data by market valuation and appraisal firm Tinsa shows that transactions have stayed steady around the 40,000 mark for the last few months. The performance suggests that the Spanish property market is entering the next phase of growth; a sustained, steady, and encouraging stage of growth that comes after the rapid increases in property purchases found when markets initially recover.

The analysis from Tinsa runs up to the end of July, when 38,841 Spanish properties were sold. This represents a 16.8% increase over July of last year and also means that – taken as being the end of a 12-motnh period – property sales were at their highest level for over six years, reaching a total of 437,000.

All 17 of the autonomous Spanish communities recorded increases in sales, with Tinsa forecasting that there could be half a millionsales recorded in 2017 – which would be the largest figure for a decade. If this was to happen though, it would mean monthly sales averaged 44,000, which sounds a little too optimistic for the current market.

Even so, with sales figures growing steadily and the robust economy, the Spanish property market can be confident about the 2018 ahead of them.