Are domestic buyers returning to the spanish market?

Domestic buyers appear to be returning to the Spanish housing market, according to agents, as homeownership potentially rears its head for younger renters.

Alfa Inmobiliaria, which has oer 170 offices in Spain and Latin America, says that local buyers are on the up once more, with 10 per cent of the current tenants agend under 38 likely to become homeowners by the end of 2015.

Vice President Jesus Duque tells OPP.Today: "Since last summer, we have observed that every day there are more young people have started looking for a house to buy."

Indeed, unemployment has been slowly falling in Spain, with the OECD now forecasting that Spain will be one of the "top job creators" of the world's advanced economics in the next two years, with job growth predicted to hit 2.9 per cent in 2015. Unemployment has been one of the major factors in the falling homeownership rates among younger Spaniards.

However, Mark Stucklin of Spanish Property Insight cautions that the figures are based on one agency's figures, so could merely highlight the growing number of younger buyers rather than their growing market share.

"If young or first-time buyers are growing in number then they are no different to other segments, all of which are growing in number right now," he adds.

Nonetheless, another agency is also seeing a growth in the number of local buyers.

Lucas Fox, which has just opened its fifth Property Lounge in the beautiful medieval town of Begur on the Costa Brava, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. It has seen the highest level of activity from national buyers since the start of the property crisis.

"For a while now we have been looking to strengthen our business in the region and we believe that market conditions are now ripe for us to open a local office to even better serve our national and international clients," comments LF Costa Brava Director Tom Maidment comments. "Begur is the ideal location for us from both a geographical and commercial point of view."

For Lucas Fox. sales in the Costa Brava in the first half of the year have been dominated by Northern European buyers, particularly British, French, Swiss, Dutch and Scandinavian clients. There has also been a notable increase in demand from British and American clients taking advantage of the weak Euro as well as the area's low property prices.

“We have seen a significant increase in demand from local buyers and a number of transactions closed," comments Mr. Maidment. "Domestic interest is focused primarily on the low to mid end of the market, from around €400,000 to €1m."