Prestige Estates News
Marbella escapes the fall in house prices with an increase of 2.15 per centThe sharpest fall in price per square metre on the Costa del Sol is in Estepona, with a drop of 6.5 per cent over the past six months, according to a recent property sector report Highest average price of a second residence in the province is still in Marbella
The property crisis has hit Spain as hard as any other country in the world, but not everywhere in the country equally. Marbella, whose Town Hall has been busy over recent months in an attempt to have the new urban development plan (PGOU) approved, has so far escaped the sharp drop in house prices on the western Costa del Sol. In fact, house prices in the municipality rose by 2.15 per cent in the year, according to a three-monthly report on the evolution of private property values by the Inmobiliaria Salvago Consulting company.
Apart from the slight rise in house prices in Marbella, where prices have been traditionally higher than in other areas of the coast, the overall drop in prices on the Costa del Sol amounted to between 0.76 and 3.8 percentage points. Estepona was an exception, where the fall in the second threemonth period of the year was as much as 6.5 per cent.
In the province
In the longer term, the annual statistics show that the average drop in prices throughout the province was 2.3 per cent, while the price per square metre built was 2,556 euros. Prices were higher on the western Costa del Sol and in the city of Malaga. Other municipalities on the Costa del Sol resisting the national property price decreases include Torremolinos, Benalmádena and Mijas. Only Fuengirola and Manilva showed decreases in prices, working out at 1.3 and 2.2per cent respectively.
In spite of the recession in the building industry, the Salvago company estimates that prices will possibly keep rising on Marbella’s so-called Golden Mile, that stretch of coastline between Marbella and Puerto Banús, even if house prices in this area have always been higher than anywhere else in the municipality of Marbella, given the shortage of building land on this short piece of coastline. Such a shortage depends on the outcome of the new development plan, and supply and demand within the sector in the immediate future.
In fact, house prices in Marbella are now the highest in the province, at 3,145 euros per square metre, against a square-metre price of between 2,700 and 2,900 in Torremolinos and Benalmádena. The average price in the city of Malaga is somewhat similar. A house of 101 square metres in surface area will cost an average of 318,600 euros in Marbella, while a house measuring 97.4 square metres in Malaga works out at 279,500 euros. Right behind Marbella in this ranking is Benalmádena, where a square metre is currently fetching up to 2,909 euros.
Where the drop in house prices is really noticeable is on the eastern Costa del Sol and in the interior of the province. Prices have dropped by eight per cent over the past year in Rincón de la Victoria, and have remained more or less constant in nearby Vélez- Málaga. This could be due to expansion of the residential areas in the municipality, allowing for an active building sector despite the worldwide property recession, we are told in the report. The biggest decline in prices has been in the interior of the province, where prices have dropped by as much as 10.5 per cent over the past year.
Holiday homes
The Salvago report tells us that prices of tourist or second residence properties have varied little in the same period, in spite of a supposed drop in overall demand in this sector. On the Costa del Sol Marbella is still the municipality with the most expensive tourist properties.
Source: Sur in English - July 2nd 2008
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