Real Estate Costa Brava Market Report Q1-Q2 2012
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www.lucasfox.com COSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET Q1 & Q2 2012 COSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET: SUMMARY Costa Brava is a unique property environment in Spain, with its own specific market characteristics affecting demand and sales prices. In many ways, Costa Brava remains an undiscovered area of northern Spain, not yet recognised amongst luxury property buyers for the opportunities it provides lifestyle investors looking for long- term value. Much of the area is highly accessible from Barcelona, making it a convenient and internationally accessible holiday travel and living area. It has magnificent, untouched beaches and inlets, many of which are accessible only by boat. The area is also bound by planning regulations that prevent future large-scale developments, allowing buyers to purchase properties with the confidence that views and natural parkland surrounds will remain pristine and untouched. Costa Brava is earning a reputation as one of Europe’s most potential wine- making regions, has a choice of world- class golf courses, and offers luxury buyers privacy in safety and security. Despite all of these qualities, property trading remains fairly low by national standards and in comparison with other luxury destinations in Spain. “In the Costa Brava the level of enquiries and client viewings has remained consistently high in the first quarter of 2012 – predominantly from northern-European buyers - though the number of transactions remains low,” said Lucas Fox Costa Brava Sales Director, Tom Maidment. “For the most part, this can be attributed to the uncertainty surrounding the Eurozone and the state of the Spanish economy, both of which have had a negative impact on buyer confidence. There is no question that buyers are convinced by the area, but less so by the timing and whilst the uncertainty over the future of the Eurozone remains, buyers remain cautious.” COSTA BRAVA PROPERTY SALES TRANSACTIONS “We have noticed a marked change in buying habits over recent years,” says Tom Maidment. “Buyers will now spend more time searching for the right property and will view more properties across a much broader price range. In some cases, they will return to the area 3 or 4 times until they are satisfied that they have considered the complete offer of properties available. Price and value are now the key drivers behind buyer decision making. Buyers investing now want to be sure that they can absorb any further possible depreciation in property prices.” There has been no observable trends in property sales transactions over the past eighteen months, with average monthly trading of around 1,000 properties for the whole Girona region, which includes the Costa Brava coastline areas. The level of enquiries and client viewings has remained consistently high in the first quarter of 2012 – predominantly from northern-European buyers COSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET Q1 & Q2 2012
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Transcript of Real Estate Costa Brava Market Report Q1-Q2 2012
www.lucasfox.comCOSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET Q1 & Q2 2012
COSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET: SUMMARYCosta Brava is a unique property environment in Spain, with its own specific market characteristics affecting demand and sales prices. In many ways, Costa Brava remains an undiscovered area of northern Spain, not yet recognised amongst luxury property buyers for the opportunities it provides lifestyle investors looking for long-term value. Much of the area is highly accessible from Barcelona, making it a convenient and internationally accessible holiday travel and living area. It has magnificent, untouched beaches and inlets, many of which are accessible only by boat. The area is also bound by planning regulations that prevent future large-scale developments, allowing buyers to purchase properties with the confidence that views and natural parkland surrounds will remain pristine and untouched.
Costa Brava is earning a reputation as one of Europe’s most potential wine-making regions, has a choice of world-class golf courses, and offers luxury buyers privacy in safety and security. Despite all of these qualities, property trading remains fairly low by national standards and in comparison with other luxury destinations in Spain.
“In the Costa Brava the level of enquiries and client viewings has remained consistently high in the first quarter of 2012 – predominantly from northern-European buyers - though the number of transactions remains low,” said Lucas Fox Costa Brava Sales Director, Tom Maidment. “For the most part, this can be attributed to the uncertainty surrounding the Eurozone and the state of the Spanish economy, both of which have had a negative impact on buyer confidence. There is no question that buyers are convinced by
the area, but less so by the timing and whilst the uncertainty over the future of the Eurozone remains, buyers remain cautious.”
COSTA BRAVA PROPERTY SALES TRANSACTIONS
“We have noticed a marked change in buying habits over recent years,” says Tom Maidment. “Buyers will now spend more time searching for the right property and will view more properties across a much broader price range. In some cases, they will return to the area 3 or 4 times until they are satisfied that they have considered the complete offer of properties available. Price and value are now the key drivers behind buyer decision making. Buyers investing now want to be sure that they can absorb any further possible depreciation in property prices.”
There has been no observable trends in property sales transactions over the past eighteen months, with average monthly trading of around 1,000 properties for the whole Girona region, which includes the Costa Brava coastline areas.
The level of enquiries and client viewings has remained consistently high in the first quarter of 2012 – predominantly from northern-European buyers
COSTA BRAVAREAL ESTATE MARKET Q1 & Q2 2012
www.lucasfox.comCOSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET Q1 & Q2 2012
COSTA BRAVA AVERAGE SALES PRICES
Lucas Fox Sales Director Tom Maid-ment summed up the first half of 2012 sales trading for luxury properties: “Unique properties in unique locations of the Costa Brava are still selling and, in some cases, still exchanging close to asking price. In these cases, buyers are investing primarily as a lifestyle decision and many are attracted by the potential revenue stream from luxury summer rentals, providing some return on their investment whilst property prices remain stagnant.”
Overall, average sales prices fell in all Costa Brava areas, according to real estate property portal Idealista. The exclusive area of Platja d’Aro showed
Property Sales Transactions for Girona, Spain 2011 – 2012 which includes the Costa Brava region
Average Sales Prices for Costa Brava properties (selected areas): Q3 2010 – Q2 2012 Foreign website visitors to Lucas Fox Costa
Brava property pages: Q1 & Q2 2012
some signs of stabilizing in price by the midyear point, with the area’s highest average sales price at €2,707 per square metre. The northern coastal area of Figueres, which includes the village of Cadaques recorded the area’s lowest average prices, ending the first half of 2012 with an average of €1,444 per square metre.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT INTEREST
Foreign residents invested 18.8 million Euros in Catalonian property (which includes the Costa Brava region) in the first three months of 2012, accounting for 12.7% of all foreign real estate inves-tment across Spain.
Foreign visitors to the Lucas Fox Costa Brava property pages increased by 18.5%
over the same period in 2011, demons-trating the strong international interest in properties in this region.
The majority of foreign website visitors viewing Lucas Fox Costa Brava pro-perties were from the UK, France, the United States and Russia.
LUCAS FOX ANALYSIS AND PREDICTIONS FOR 2012
“Many buyers are looking to take ad-vantage of the market and expect to be able to find genuine bargains,” explains Tom Maidment, Lucas Fox Costa Brava Sales Director. “This may be possible on the southern Costas where new de-velopments remain largely unsold and banks are offloading massively discoun-ted stock, though in the exclusive areas of the Costa Brava, where Lucas Fox are active, bargain hunters are likely to be disappointed.”
“This is in part due to the protected nature of the region, where further de-velopment has been restricted in order to preserve the area’s natural parklands
Alex VaughanDirector Lucas Fox
Stijn TeeuwenDirector Lucas Fox
FIRST LINE PROPERTY
HOUSE / VILLA
GOLF PROPERTY
COUNTRY HOUSE
HOUSE / VILLA
FIRST LINE PROPERTY
LUXURY PROPERTY
COUNTRY HOUSE
LOCATION: SPAIN » COSTA BRAVA » BEGUR
LOCALIDAD: SPAIN » COSTA BRAVA » BEGUR
LOCATION: SPAIN » COSTA BRAVA » BEGUR
LOCATION: SPAIN » COSTA BRAVA » BEGUR
LOCALIDAD: SPAIN » COSTA BRAVA» S’AGARO / PLATJA D’ ARO
LOCATION: SPAIN » GIRONA » BAIX EMPORDÁ
PRECIO A CONSULTAR PRECIO A CONSULTARLFCB709
LFCB294
LFCB606
LOCATION: SPAIN » GIRONA » GIRONA CITY / EL GIRONES
FFCB700
2,850,000€2,450,000€
695,000€
LFCB691
LFCB607
LFCB654
LOCATION: SPAIN » GIRONA » PLA DE L’ ESTANY
2,650,000€LFCB558
10,000,000€
www.lucasfox.com
For more information contact us:
www.lucasfox.com
PRECIO A CONSULTAR
COSTA BRAVA REAL ESTATE MARKET Q1 & Q2 2012
beauty. Costa Brava’s reputation as an exclusive lifestyle retreat with untou-ched beaches, a growing viticultural and small-scale ecological farming industry, and world-class recreational parklands and golf courses mean that there is less price elasticity in the local property market.”
“We believe that the market will remain steady until the end of 2012 but expect to see an increase in transac-tions and buyer confidence as investors begin to sense that we are nearing the bottom to the market.”
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