Spanish property market could be “over the worst”

Thursday 8th December 2011

A growing number of experts believe that the Spanish property market is showing tentative signs of recovery following one of the most spectacular housing crashes of all time.

Spanish property sales and prices have plummeted across the country in the past five years, on the back of the global credit crisis, a string of corruption scandals, a chronic oversupply of housing, a string of illegally constructed homes, a weak economy, high unemployment and a record level of foreclosures.

It is estimated that property prices have fallen by up to 70% in some parts of the country since the market peak of late 2006 leaving many people in negative equity and others facing repossession.

Although property prices are unlikely to bounce back anytime soon, some property commentators and professionals feel as though the market is reaching the bottom of the downturn.

Mark Stucklin of Spanish Property Insight commented: “I am of the opinion that this is about as low as the [Spanish property] market will go in volume terms. Q4 may well be another record low, but after that I expect the market to bottom out in the course of 2012. This is not to say there will be a strong recovery after that – far from it. But at least the market will have stopped shrinking.”

The latest report Global House Price report from Knight Frank suggests that market in Spain, along with some other struggling European nations, could be "over the worst".