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10+ Reasons For Buying a property in Spain

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1. Real estate transactions in Spain are at the highest level since 2008!

Spaniards and Foreigners are very active, both are buying the most since 2008, check this chart:

 

If you want to read more on that subject, read our article: Who are the foreigners buying properties in Spain? Or read our detailed quarterly Spanish property price report for all the main cities.

 

2. Real estate prices in Spain are low compared to historical standards and started to rise again since end 2014.

 

Here is the evolution chart of the price per square meter in Spain over the last 20 years.

 

 

3. Real estate prices are low compared to mortgage costs.

If you are looking to invest in Spanish real estate, have a quick look at our detailed article: What return will you make on your Spanish Property?

 

4. Economic growth is back in Europe and Spain is one of the strongest countries in Europe.

Economic Growth expectations for 2020, European Commission, “Winter 2019- update”

Click on a country to check its growth rate, Source : 1

 

The European commission sees the Spanish growth decelerating further to 2.1% in 2019 and 1.9% in 2020 as the cycle matures. The deceleration is mainly driven by a slowdown in private consumption, which is expected to grow more slowly than disposable income, as pent-up demand is absorbed and households increase their saving rate.

Read our last article on that subject: Spain GDP growth: the European commission expectations for 2019 & 2020

5. Enjoy 320 days of sun per year!

Sunshine map of Europe, in Hours per year

Have a look at our Infographics on the monthly weather statistics for the 18 biggest cities in Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Malaga,… and discover the sea temperature, the number of hours of sun per day, the number of mm of rain per month… Everything you need before planning your holidays.

Source: 2

6. The second longest coastal line in the south of Europe, behind Italy. Enjoy the beautiful beaches of Spain.

 

7. Spain enjoys a very stable political environment compared to Africa or Turkey for instance.

 

8. Qualitative ranks:

  • Life expectancy by countries and by sex: Top 10 countries in the world. As you will see in the statistics produced by the OECD (2014 data), the life expectancy of Spaniards is the second longest in the world behind Japanese. The Women are ranked as well as second and the men are ranked sixth.
Lifetime expectancy, Men and Women, OECD, 2014
  • Health Care System in Spain is ranked by the World Health Organization as the seventh in the world. Source: 3
  • Work life balance rank in the World: Spain is at the fourth place behind the Netherlands, the Denmark and France. What a terrific result!

The key findings of the research from OECD are:

“The ability to successfully combine work, family commitments and personal life are important for the well-being of all members of a household. In Spain, almost 6% of employees work very long hours, less than the OECD average of 13%.The more people work, the less time they have to spend on other activities, such as time with others, leisure activities, eating or sleeping. The amount and quality of leisure time are important for people’s overall well-being and can bring additional physical and mental health benefits. In Spain, full-time workers devote 66% of their day on average, or 15.9 hours, to personal care (eating, sleeping, etc.) and leisure (socialising with friends and family, hobbies, games, computer and television use, etc.) – more than the OECD average of 15 hours.

At around 1.3 children per woman, fertility rates in Spain have been amongst the lowest in the OECD for the past two decades. Increasingly, women and men first want to establish themselves in the labour market before having children. This has led to a postponement of childbirth and the average age of first childbirth for mothers is now close to 30. Low fertility rates are also related to a fall in the number of large families and a significant proportion of women remaining childless.”

 

Read our detailed article on that: “Spain is the world’s healthiest country

Source: 4

9. The cost of life in Spain is much lower than European averages.

We did the work with the help of the Statistics from Eurostat as of December 2017 to compare Spain vs all the other Countries in Europe so that you could compare to your actual country of origin.

Here are the results:

A graph illustrating the percentage of apple users in the United States.

If you compare Spain on this Chart in Orange colour with Europe in Blue colour, you will notice that Spain is more expensive in 2 areas: “Electricity, Gaz and fuels” and “Furniture and Furnishings” by 3%. A third sector not represented on this chart is Communication, which is 28% more expensive than the rest of Europe. For all the other sectors, Spain is cheaper!

Let’s have a look at the data:

A table displaying the percentage of goods and services in Spain relative to the cost of living.
Renfe map of Fast Trains in Spain

Source: 5

 

11. Sightseeing places:

Spain is a very rich country in terms of culture. You have a lot of Museums, many historic places, many sightseeing places. Spain has as well 45 UNESCO Sites and as such is the third country in the world behind Italy & China in terms of the number of sites! So don’t expect Spain to be just Sun and beaches!

Check all the must do activities on any of the Spanish Costas with our beautiful infographics.

 

Here is the list of the Unesco sites with direct links to get more information on those:

Natural (3)
Mixed (2)

Find more on this here: http://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/es


12. Spain is the number 1 country in terms of the number of nights spent by tourists in Europe. In 2014, year for which we have the last available data’s, Eurostat measured that 1,2 Bn nights were spent by tourists in Europe according to Eurostat. The Top three destinations are Spain with 21,5% of the nights, Italy with 15,5% of the nights and France with 10,8%.

Source: 6

Read our detailed article on that: “Spain is the world number one country for tourism

13. Low construction costs

 

Discover the best new build projects in Spain available right now

2 beds 1 bath 61.3 m²
2 beds 2 baths 61.3 m²
3 beds 3 baths 191 m²
3 beds 2 baths 109 m²
2 beds 2 baths 97 m²
3 beds 2 baths 114 m²
3 beds 2 baths 106 m²
2 beds 2 baths 83 m²
3 beds 2 baths 103 m²
2 beds 2 baths 90 m²
2 beds 2 baths 83 m²
3 beds 2 baths 98 m²
2 beds 2 baths 90 m²
2 beds 2 baths 81.7 m²
3 beds 2 baths 101.9 m²
3 beds 2 baths 119.8 m²
3 beds 2 baths 129.2 m²
3 beds 2 baths 106.9 m²
2 beds 2 baths 88.9 m²
3 beds 2 baths 106.9 m²
3 beds 3 baths 177 m²
3 beds 2 baths 84 m²
2 beds 2 baths 72 m²
2 beds 2 baths 73 m²
3 beds 2 baths 85 m²
2 beds 2 baths 71 m²
2 beds 2 baths 80 m²
3 beds 2 baths 88 m²
3 beds 3 baths 162 m²
3 beds 2 baths 220 m²
3 beds 2 baths 100 m²
2 beds 2 baths 76 m²
3 beds 2 baths 97 m²
2 beds 2 baths 81 m²
3 beds 2 baths 123 m²
2 beds 2 baths 154 m²
3 beds 2 baths 116 m²
3 beds 2 baths 149 m²
3 beds 2 baths 133 m²
2 beds 2 baths 87 m²

FAQ Buying property in Spain

Can foreigners buy property in Spain?

Yes foreigners can purchase a property in Spain. In order to do that, they need a NIE. Read more in our article: the 9 steps to your Spanish property

Are Brits still buying property in Spain?

For the last 12 months to end June 2019, the most active nationalities were :

  • the British (14.1%),
  • the French (8%),
  • the Moroccans (7.7%)
  • the Germans (7.4%),
  • the Romanians (7.3%)
  • the Italians (6.3%),
  • the Belgians (5.4%).
  • and the Swedish (3.8%)

Can I get residency in Spain if I buy a house?

Spain as introduced the Golden Visa allowing certain foreigners to become resident (in general if they invest more than 0.5m€. Read our Golden Visa article on our site

How long does it take to buy a property in Spain?

About 6 weeks. Although, we have to say that since the new law got into effect in August 2019, there is a new 'cooling-off' period of 10 days, so this increases a little bit the timing for getting a mortgage.

An aerial view of a city at night providing legal advice for property buying in Spain.
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