Brits ‘keeping spanish market afloat’

One in three properties in Spain’s Granada region is sold to foreign buyers…

Foreign buyers, mainly from Britain and Germany are snapping up the properties and helping to lift the market during this slow period. Unlike the Spanish buyers, foreign buyers do not try and push the price of a property down, and trust the professionals to do their job, according to the website Sur in English, the newspaper for Southern Spain.

A third of all properties sold in the province of Granada are being bought by foreigners, and these are located in areas such as Alpujarra, the Granada coastline, the Lecrin Valley, and the Baza area.

However, it isn't that sales to foreign buyers have risen sharply over the last few months, more that sales to Spaniards have plummeted, while foreigners continue to buy at more or less the same rate. The proportion of one in three may be higher on the Coast though, with many developments aimed exclusively at foreign buyers.

Estate agents have reported that as much as 40 per cent of their properties are sold to foreigners, and the majority are British who are looking for a permanent base, rather than a holiday home. Buyers favour the cortijos (country houses) in the area, and a large proportion of these are owned by foreigners.