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Chinese investors looking to invest 100 million Euros in Barcelona and Ibiza

Leading Luxury Real Estate Agency Lucas Fox once again demonstrates that it leads the way in attracting foreign investment to Spain.

In collaboration with leading Asian property consultancy SQFT, the Barcelona-based enterprise will showcase some of its most exciting residential and commercial opportunities in Cataluña and the Balearics to a delegation representing nine groups of Chinese and Korean investors.

The Spanish property market, in particular in Barcelona and Ibiza, has become increasingly attractive to investors from the Asia-Pacific region, thanks to a proposed change in Spanish residency law allowing non-EU citizens who buy a property upwards of 500 000 euros to automatically receive Spanish residency. The initiative has primarily been aimed at Chinese, Russian and American investors who otherwise would need a European visa. The new law is expected to come into force by July 2013.

SQFT director Han Bin comments “Most Chinese investors want to buy a property in Barcelona because, not only are they getting a good investment, but there is now the opportunity to acquire Spanish residency at the same time. What’s more, the market is particularly attractive given the historic low prices”

Lucas Fox’s business development manager Jason Ham began working on the collaboration in September 2012. In less than a year, this former commercial property lawyer has attracted a huge amount of interest in both Catalunya and the Balearics.
The delegation will arrive in Barcelona towards the end of May. The group will then travel to Ibiza where the Lucas Fox Ibiza team will showcase some of its most attractive properties on the island.

Jason Ham, who is based in Ibiza, comments “We have seen Chinese investment in many corners of the world but this is the first time that we have seen interest in Ibiza. Thanks to the proposed changes in residency laws for property investors outside of the European Union, we expect to see increasingly more interest from the Asia-Pacific region as well as Russia and the US”

Besides being presented with unique investment opportunities, the Chinese delegation’s visit will coincide with many of Ibiza’s opening season parties and events. The group will be attending the ‘International Music Summit’, one of Ibiza’s most important music festivals, celebrated in the Old Town (Dalt Vila) and hosted by some of the world’s leading DJs.

Facts & Figures:
Foreigners accounted for more than 80% of sales at Lucas Fox in 2012, the majority from Northern Europe and Switzerland, and approximately 5% from Russia and the Asia-Pacific regions
Overall foreign investment in Spanish real estate increased by 17% in 2012, to the highest level since 2004, according to the latest figures from the Bank of Spain.
Foreigners spent 5.54 billion Euros on Spanish property last year, up from 4.7 billion in 2011, and a 52 percent increase compared to the total of 3.6 billion in 2009
7 billion Euros was spent by foreign investors in 2003 in the midst of the Spanish property boom

For more information on this press release, quotes or high resolution images please contact Carrie Frais by phone on +34 620586655 or by email carrie@lucasfox.com

Fabulous 6 bedroom penthouse in the Bonanova district of Barcelona LFS4112

Fabulous 6 This unique duplex Penthouse for sale in Bonanova consists of 380m2 of living space with terraces on both levels. The building has a concierge service, a large community pool, a small play area and a tennis court.

The property enjoys abundant natural light thoughout and all rooms are spacious and practical.

It is ideally situated near some of Barcelona’s leading International schools with good access to public transport.

Photoset:

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Lucas Fox Agent Mentioned in Travel Blog

At Lucas Fox we’re happy to hear about our client’s experiences with us. Recently jetsettergypsy mentioned an experience with Rafael one of our sales staff. She said, “This time around, I was truly home, greeted by my Realtor Extraordinaire, Rafael Rosendo, of Lucas Fox Realty and the keys to my flat for the summer.”

Thanks Jetsettergypsy for the mention. If you’re ever back in Barcelona, please drop in and see us again.

Please contact us or drop us a comment of your experiences with Lucas Fox agents.

Beautiful Villa to Buy & View in Costa Maresme, Barcelona| LFS3098

Barcelona Luxury Property: Rental Data Sources

Here at the Lucas Fox blog, we use a wealth of data to examine the Barcelona luxury property market. The recent Barcelona real estate market report and its companion reports to Costa Brava and Ibiza also draw from a range of data sources in order to inform potential investors of the current state and future directions of luxury property in Barcelona and other areas of northern Spain.

We regularly receive enquiries seeking further guidance on using data to analyze the Barcelona luxury property market. A recent blog post discussed the availability and use of data about Barcelona property sales. Today, we share our views on the robustness and reliability of data about the rental market in Barcelona.

Data item: Average and Highest rental prices per m2

Source: Idealista
Data considerations: Idealista offer monthly and quarterly summaries of average rental prices based on all advertised dwellings in their housing classifieds internet site. For Barcelona, the monthly report also provides details of the highest monthly rental per m2 prices for each Barcelona district, which is useful as a price measure for luxury property in Barcelona available to rent. The following map shows idealista’s average rental prices for each Barcelona district for the end of the third quarter 2011 (July – September 2011).

Barcelona average rental prices for each district at end of third quarter 2011

Data item: Average rental process per m2

Source: Fotocasa
Data considerations: Fotocasa draws on data from its 8,000 + classified adverts for rental properties to calculate rental averages in Barcelona and provides a quarterly report with summary data for Barcelona and district level average prices. The report also provides the top 10 districts in Barcelona with the highest prices for rental properties per m2, but does not offer a full list for all districts, making it difficult to map all areas, as we tend to do in the Barcelona real estate market report.

servicio ofrecido por www.fotocasa.es lideres en venta y alquiler de pisos y casas

Data item: Flight arrivals

Source: Aena
Data considerations: Flight arrivals into Barcelona provide an indication of levels of inbound tourism. Spanish airports conglomerate Aena releases monthly data on arrivals and departures at each Spanish airport. This data is indicative of levels of tourism, but of course includes residents returning form business or holiday travel, and business travellers as well as tourist arrivals. However, growth on previous year’s figures are indicative of tourist growth and when aligned with other data sources, flight arrivals can show tourism trends. It is important to note also that not all Barcelona arrivals will stay in Barcelona: many may go immediately to properties in Ibiza or to their Costa Brava villa for example. This is particularly true since Ryanair stopped flying into Girona earlier this year: a significant drop in arrivals to Girona airport does not mean that less people are travelling to Costa Brava and other areas in Girona, as many now arrive at Barcelona airport and take road transport for the final leg of their journey.

Data item: Tourism levels

Source: Spanish Institute of Industry, Tourism and Commerce
Data considerations: Monthly data on numbers of foreign and Spanish tourism are provided in summary and in detail. This data shows where tourists come from and their principal destination. Unfortunately, the detailed data does not give a truly global breakdown and lists the top 9 or 10 countries of origin for tourists and then splits the rest of tourists into groupings like “the rest of the Americas”, Nordic countries and “rest of the world”. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to notice growth areas for tourism, such as amongst Russian residents or in other emerging markets like Brazil, China or India. However, specific data requests can be made and an extensive range of statistical publications are offered for more in-depth analysis.

Data provides a fascinating and fine-grained analysis of the Barcelona luxury property market – for both property sales and rentals. This can help investors, property owners, and those looking to rent or relocate with the information needed to make prudent investment decisions. The quick and accurate availability of data is essential for any analysis of the Barcelona luxury property market and we commend the data providers for making their statistics so readily available.

What data is important to you to analyze the health and viability of Barcelona real estate and the Barcelona luxury property market in particular? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts and opinions.

What Next For Barcelona Luxury Property in 2011?

Market Reports include predictions for the next six months

With the release of the Lucas Fox Market Reports this week, there is bound to be some contention as the agency’s Directors share their insights and predictions on the future for Barcelona luxury property, Costa Brava villas and Ibiza real estate for the next six months and into 2012.

The Barcelona luxury property market is analyzed in the Lucas Fox half-yearly Market Report

Each half-year, Lucas Fox International Properties releases a compilation of data to summarize the local property market conditions in its three principal locations: Barcelona, Costa Brava and Ibiza. With the launch of a new design and more comprehensive analysis for the market report formats, Lucas Fox Directors have shared their analysis of the markets they are working in day by day, month by month.

Barcelona real estate may be a slightly more reliable market to analyze and second-guess than the at-times volatile national housing market has been over the past few years. Meanwhile, the prices of Costa Brava villas and the continuing demand in Ibiza real estate show that there are some signs of a steadying trend – particularly at the luxury end of the market – making it possible to forecast the next six months without too much out of a leap of faith. All the same, there are distinctly different perspectives amongst analysts as to the state of the local housing markets, and the Directors were well aware there are bound to be alternative (and vocal) opinions.

Some analysts have suggested that there is still some bottoming of the market to occur, while others are enthusiastically looking for bargain-priced properties.

Market Reports also cover the sales rates for Costa Brava villas and apartments, and Ibiza real estate for the January to June 2011

Given these differences in interpreting the housing markets, the Directors wanted to offer their clients and regular readers a firmer sense of what is happening locally, so that investors and sellers can make more objective decisions.

“We predict that for the immediate future buyers will be able to secure Barcelona properties at competitive prices”, affirms Alex Vaughan, Director of Lucas Fox. However, he also tempers his confidence with a recognition that the market is changing in the way people are buying properties, and the investment cycles necessary to hold on to quality luxury property in Barcelona: “. Given the current economic conditions and lack of finance available to local buyers, international clients should be willing to hold on to their properties for longer as it will be several years before the next growth cycle.”

The Lucas Fox Market Reports for January – June 2011 review the market dynamics for Barcelona luxury property, Costa Brava villas and apartments and Ibiza real estate. They are available for download from the Lucas Fox website and from the property guides page of our blog. Make sure you also subscribe to the Lucas Fox blog to be kept up to date with future releases.

Spain Real Estate Market Reports: Forthcoming Release

Luxury apartments Barcelona, Costa Brava Villas and Ibiza Real Estate

Next week, Lucas Fox International Properties will release three half-yearly real estate market reports analysing the January to June 2011 period. This includes analysis of:

Luxury apartments Barcelona
Costa Brava villas
Ibiza real estate.

Readers can download copies of the reports from the Lucas Fox website and from this blog’s Spanish Real Estate Market Reports page. If you are interested in keeping an eye on when is the best time to buy property in Spain, we encourage you to subscribe to the Lucas Fox blog so we can keep you up to date with future releases of the market reports.

The data that is used in the report comes from a variety of sources:

online real estate portals
Spanish housing and statistics Governmental departments
Lucas Fox sales data (for example, sales of Costa Brava villas in the first half of 2011), and
feedback from Lucas Fox luxury property buyers.

A key complaint about Spanish property data over the past few years has been its inconsistency. This is often the case with economic figures, and Spain has received its fair share of complaints. This has included complaints pointing to differences in how property data is presented, and disagreements about the core set of economic metrics that should be used to forecast future growth and prosperity for the country more broadly.

For example, in July this year, leading economic agencies ranging from the Bank of Spain, the Spanish Government, the IMF and OECD each drew on different sets of metrics to calculated forecasted growth in household consumption. This resulted in differences from 0.9% growth predicted for 2011 (by a consensus of independent analysts) to 1.6% growth (predicted by the OECD).

Differences in forecasting and analysing property markets is similar.

To address the disparity in ways of reporting housing data, Lucas Fox triangulates the data sources used when collating our half-yearly market reports. As leaders in the Spanish luxury property market, we are also able to compare the figures to the experiences of our sales staff and the feedback we receive from our customers, property buyers, and recent property sellers. This helps us ensure the data reflects the real experiences in the market, in each of the three key locations.

“Triangulation of data” is a process where several sources are used to measure the same topic. For example, when looking at house sale prices, we looked at monthly data reports from:

leading online web portals fotocasa and idealista,
an industry housing price index designed by real estate portal Kyero in partnership with real estate analysts Tinsa
Spanish Government Department of Housing and Development
Spanish National Statistics Institute.

Make sure you subscribe to the Lucas Fox blog to be sent a copy of the market reports as soon as they are released.

The reports cover:

The real estate markets in Barcelona, Costa Brava and Ibiza
The luxury property markets in each location: the market for luxury apartments Barcelona, sales of Costa Brava villas, and the strength of Ibiza real estate
Property sales data summary
Long term rental in Barcelona
The short term property rental market in each location
Foreign investment
Predictions for the remainder of 2011.

In the meantime, here is one of our sources for data for our research. It was only able to help us look at some facts about the first quarter of 2011, but it is an interesting insight into the Spanish Government’s official figures. It was used by the Spanish Housing and Development Ministers during their roadshow tour to encourage foreign investment in Spanish property:

Presentations released by the National Department of Housing and Development to encourage foreign property investment.

Subscribe to the Lucas Fox blog to be sent a copy of the luxury apartments Barcelona, Costa Brava villas, and Ibiza real estate market reports for 2011.

Top 5 Barcelona apps during a short stay rental

With the city celebrating its recently awarded status of ‘World Mobile City’ by the Mobile World Congress, we share the best Barcelona apps to use while staying in shortstay Barcelona real estate.

Barcelona is a great temporary base for people who find themselves in the city for a short stay. The city is easy to get around, clean, and safe. Every street has a charming architectural delight of some sort with dizzyingly intricate building frontages. You will be surprised at the random regularity of turning a corner and seeing yet another piece of Barcelona real estate with patterned embellishments around window edges, or mosaic additions to front facades. These five Barcelona apps will help you peel back another layer of the city while also being practical about what you need for short stay Barcelona living.

Barcelona apps: TimeOut magazine guide

1. Time Out BCN: This app has the comprehensive, easy navigation and organised structure that you would expect from the magazine relied on by travellers all over the world. It’s great for enough of an overview of restaurants, venues and activities that you can decide what to try, and has a function to rank venues by how close they are to your Barcelona real estate.

Barcelona apps: AroundMe

2. AroundMe: While Time Out has all the entertainment and free time locations, AroundMe puts the more practical directory in your hand. See where the nearest ATM is, farmacias, and supermarkets. This Barcelona app also includes maps to direct you to where you need to go, but double check the recommended route: mapping is often literal along main streets, while there may be a more direct route weaving through the street grid.

Surprisingly for a local reference directory, it doesn’t have a list of gyms, or swimming pools, that are near your shortstay Barcelona real estate. TimeOut does include some options for where to workout or do some laps, but only focuses on the bigger sports facilities, not your neighbourhood choices. It would also be useful if AroundMe could add to the hospitals section with a list of medical clinics and dentists, just in case.

Barcelona apps: Sincroguia TV

3. SincroGuia TV: Getting into the rhythm of knowing when the news is on which channel, or keeping in touch with a favorite Spanish gameshow (Mojate anyone?), is yet another confusing aspect to the world-of-its-own Spanish television networks. SincroGuia TV is one of those apps that you use rarely but seems a precious gift when you do need to choose a channel.

Barcelona apps: JourneyBox

4. Barcelona Journey Box: This unexpected find is worth getting hooked on. A series of street tours for the city are included with photos of the walking route. You can plug in your earphones and hear the descriptions of specific Barcelona real estate as you get acquainted with the city blocks. It has just the right level of detail to catch your attention, as the narrator shares trivia about building architecture, historical milestones and local characters.

Barcelona apps: Traducctor

5. Traducctor: For shortstay renters practicing Catalan or Castellano, this app lets you carry a reliable dictionary with you to help you keep up your side of the conversation. Translator Co-Design is a strong alternative, but tradductor has a better interface and feels that slight bit faster when translating.

Barcelona apps: What next?

What Barcelona apps developers need to offer next is a good calendar app with listings of what’s on and when around the city. Time Out and AroundMe help with where to go, but there is no obvious choice amongst the Barcelona apps that can share suggested daily events of when to go. People’s first shortstay in the city may be to look at Barcelona real estate, as part of a business mission, or simply for a weekend away. Whatever the initial reason to visit, it often becomes the start of an ongoing connection with the city. Store these 5 Barcelona apps in your phone for when you return, and share with us your favorite Barcelona apps in the comments below….

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