Golden visas lure non-eu spanish property buyers
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Photo credit spanish-property-sales.net
In the past year, Spain has seen a huge increase in tourism, particularly from countries such as China, Russia and those in the Middle East. This can be put down to the recently introduced ‘golden visa’ incentive, which has provided a 200 million euro investment.
Anthony Bloom is a property investment broker in Costa Blanca selling property for sale in Moraira and Javea. These are coastal Spanish towns that traditionally have been very popular with affluent British expats. Mr. Bloom runs a popular Moraira and Javea estate agency website at www.spanish-property-sales.net and has first hand experience of what the ‘golden visa’ means to the Spanish property market.
The Golden Visa works as a pass allowing people from outside of the EU to travel through the 26 countries without difficulty or hassle. The buyers are only given a golden visa if they spend over 500, 000 euros on the property.
The incentive comes after seeing how positively it has affected the Portuguese economy after they introduced the scheme just before the Spanish and it can be put down to the fact that the warm weather and beautiful sites of the beach are no longer encouraging tourism or people buying holiday homes, as the economic climate has forced people to hold onto their money and to spend it more wisely.
The ‘golden visa’ has encouraged, as aforementioned, mainly people from the Middle East, Russia and China, this is due to a number of different reasons, partly for the Chinese as the Spanish real estate market is less overpriced, and not only that but the Chinese Yuan holds up well against the euro. Almost all potential buyers are using this as a way to pay for their holidays without having to go through any difficult or expensive visa applications, and not only that but for some people especially in Russia and the Middle East it is seen as a back-up plan, as relations between the west and Russia may deteriorate and the relations with some of the Middle Eastern countries are already strained.
Photo credit spanish-property-sales.net
Spain is now committed to trying to gain as many foreign buyers as possible and is taking measures to make sure that they are catered for. For instance on many Spanish real estate adverts they now have translations into Chinese so that they can gain as much foreign interest in properties as possible, which will therefore lead to more economic prosperity. They have exceeded their targets by using the ‘golden visa’ and are therefore pushing it more and more, to date they have issued 318 visas bringing in 200 million euros and are looking for 300 million by the time it gets to December.
This seems to have worked out extremely well for both Portugal and Spain, the fact that they also have the incentive of breathtaking views in conjunction with this ‘golden visa’ means that they can exploit it to it’s fullest potential and could be a major help towards the rescue of their economy, with plenty of interest and more coming in on a regular basis it looks as though this could be an extremely lucrative scheme. Of course, this is a scheme to introduce more money into the Spanish economy and therefore boost it but it seems as though both parties win from this deal, the buyer has a wonderful home in Spain and the ability to travel and Spain will see the injection of money from wealthy people from all over the world.