Imogen CalderwoodTHE construction of new homes in Spain is on the up.
Applications for building permits rose by 3.3% in the first eight months of 2014, compared to the same period in last year.
Ministry of Development data shows a total of 24,696 requests have been received this year.
If the current rate of applications is maintained, 2014 could end with more than 37,000 permits applied for – beating last year’s 34,288.
This is the second consecutive improvement following the continuous declines experienced since the beginning of the financial crisis.
Nearly 70% of the applications were for the construction of housing in apartment blocks – a total of 16,782 – which is an increase of 3.7% on 2013.
The remaining applications were for the construction of family homes – a total of 7,902 – which is an increase of 2.3% on 2013.
And so the old cycle starts again. Spain should have overhauled the planning system from the bottom up beforehand. You can just take it for granted that a large percentage of these applications are for “irregular” properties.
Yes Fred, back to normal. Boom and bust. Although I doubt there will be another boom for decades if we keep reading reports of demolitions. I see the heading here reports 2 more demolitions this month.
No point in building apartment blocks when so many are standing empty.
Who in their right mind would trust any building licences/permissions they received?
Perhaps they will grant permission for people to rebuild on some of the demolition sites. Cantoria perhaps?
Extraordinary! House prices fell 4.2% in September according to Tinsa, 1.7ish million properties still for sale (conservatively), yet the story says applications for new homes is soaring in Spain. This sounds like one of those stories from a Spanish Property website which often talked of lots more cranes appearing on the Spanish coasts that were generated from their experts who are agents and developers.
Never mind, the now recession hit Russians, and Chinese will be flocking to buy them. Lol
Requires guesswork to divine how developers can make money from this apparent insanity. So, if VERY cheap “off-plan” sales are made, by the thousand, and no actual construction takes place, then a lot of money can be prised from gullible buyers by convincing “developers” for “deposits” up front.
All it will cost would be palm-grease for planners.
A perfect illustration of the success of this scam lies in another thread on here, regarding a Moroccan non-development causing heartbreak for many.
The beauty of it is, it cuts out the middle-men on the trowel, then bulldozer. The whole thing can be done on a laptop.
Stefanjo you are correct. The Developers can’t lose. 30% upfront before even the foundations are laid. The large AIFOS group were taking deposits before they had bought the land in some cases. Now they have gone bankrupt leaving thousands owed return of these large deposits.
The problem with apartments in Spain is that they are very noisy having no carpets. Tiles and concrete, I know I have one. You would have to be mad to purchase any property off plan in Spain.
borrow the money to build – pocket most of it.
sell whatever – pocket that.
go bankrupt, sit in a local venta with the money.
bank’s get EU bailout.
do it again.
My daughter and son in law have for the last two and a half years been asking their bank (Banco Popular in spain to exchange their property (Bahia del Golf Apartments Almerimar) but without success They cannot use the apartment as all the electrics and copper pipe work has been stolen making the whole apartment block uninhabitable and the bank just refuses to negotiate with them
any help or suggestions would be most welcome
Kind regards
Mr Edward Walsh
@Edward: maybe take a page from the uk on this. Claim you / the tenent have no where to go, and without pipes there’s no water so its below basic human rights. Its making you all ill. And european courts of human rights will have to be involved.
This path seemed to be the only way to get some uk councils to pull their fingers out!
Godd Luck.
Edward, hire a lawyer. Is their property legal? Seems a very strange case that your infrastructure can be ripped out, making it impossible to live, yet nothing can be done. Spain is really such a mad place to purchase; these sorts of stories are so commonplace.