Spain in top 3 places to invest in Europe

Worldwide investors are prepared to invest 14,000 million euros in the purchase of real-estate properties and assets in Spain within the next 12 months, in accordance with a study completed by agency firm Knight Frank, amongst 184 worldwide investors.

Among the list of the The european countries most attractive to investors, Spain has gone up from 6th place to the 3rd spot. Specifically, Spain happens to be the most preferred location to purchase for 11.6% of the investors surveyed, behind only Germany (23.3%) and the United Kingdom (39.4%).

Investors are looking for luxurious areas to invest, like Marbella

With the Eurozone now more stable, “indications of improvement throughout the economy” and also the property price modifications accrued in Spain since 2008 tend to be, based on the firms questioned, the main issues motivating them to include the Spanish marketplace within their investment decision plans.

“Spain has recently carried out certain changes which has led to the greatest correction of prices in the EU, with reductions as high as 65%”, said Knight Frank’s company director, Humphrey White, in a recent report.

The company also is convinced that the Spanish market “is benefited by the extremely high prices per square metre quoted in all major European cities.” Within this sense, over fifty percent of the people surveyed by Knight Frank pointed out that cities like London or Paris currently have “lost their interest because of the low profitability presently provided – under 4% on most occasions”, and are at this point considering operations in other locations such as Madrid or Barcelona to “ensure the path to greater investment”.

The particular change in trend can also be reflected in the user profile of the investor, as stakeholders within the Spanish marketplace and not merely “hedge funds”, but additionally large insurance companies institutional investors, ‘family offices’ and endowments. So what type of assets these types of individuals are looking for?

El Economista documented the fact that the office sector continues to be in 1st place, in addition to hotel properties situated mainly in Madrid and Barcelona, luxurious homes in ‘prime’ locations such as certain areas of the Costa del Sol like Marbella and other luxurious coastal locations. Investors are especially looking for  housing packages around the coast offering quality at “great discounts.”

Spanish could buy 14,725 homes with unredeemed pesetas

Spanish pesetas

According to latest data published from the Bank of Spain, Spanish citizens could buy 14,725 average-size households with peseta currency notes and coins which have not yet been exchanged for the single European currency, and the value of these unredeemed pesetas at the end of May totalled 1,700 million euros, a figure similar to that of a month earlier.

According to the Ministry of Development, between January and March the average price of a private home stood at 1,649.30 euros per square metre, putting the cost of an apartment of about 70 square metres at 115,451 euros.

In May, the number of unredeemed peseta notes held by members of the public and companies, both Spanish and foreign, amounted to the equivalent to 890 million euros, which was 13 million euros less than a year earlier, but money that would enable over 7,700 families to have access to housing.

Meanwhile, El Economista reported that the euro value of the peseta coins that have not been exchanged amounted to 810 million euros, compared with 812 million a year earlier – “small change” with which some 7,016 average-sized flats could be acquired.

The Bank of Spain reported that between January and May, 6 million euros worth of pesetas were exchanged, and at the end of 2011 the equivalent to 1,706 million euros worth of pesetas remained unredeemed.

According to the experts, although the exchanging of pesetas to euros is still going on, there will be a great number of pesetas which will never be redeemed, as they belong to coin collections, have left the country in the pockets of tourists, or have simply gone astray.

Article source: Kyero.com