One could almost suspect a certain amount of “complicity” between the real estate market at the Costa del Sol and budget airline Vueling, which has just announced several new routes to Germany and Belgium from Malaga Airport. Aren’t Belgian and German property buyers particularly active at the Costa del Sol?
Second homes and investment properties in Marbella, Malaga, Torremolinos and Estepona for example are largely snapped up by buyers from Germany, Belgium, Scandinavia, Russia, the United Kingdom and China – providing even better access to the region with low cost flights from Munich, Hanover and Hamburg as well as connecting Brussels with Malaga Airport is therefore a smart move bringing potentially imrpoved tourism to the region and with that more people on Fly to Buy visits.
Direct flights to Hanover will commence on 16th March 2013, while flights to Munich won’t start until 16th June next year. Hamburg to Malaga flights will commence on 18th June and flight from Brussels will start on 24th April.
The new flight routes to Germany offer 77,320 additional seats for increased air travel to Andalcuia. Vueling flights from Cardiff in Wales, Paris-Orly in France and Copenhagen in Denmark will continue as scheduled throughout the summer next year, too.
The Spanish property market is still undergoing some considerable adjustment with regard to pricing and what finance is available from banks. Although the really cheap bargain properties can mostly be found inland and at the Costa Blanca, property prices in Marbella are not as high as they were a decade ago and international buyers are flocking to the Costa del Sol to queue up for apartments in luxury golf and seafront developments, many of which are sold out within a matter of weeks.
Local councils are also using the current economic downturn to take stock of what is important from the point of view of holidaymakers and investors. Improvements to tired looking hotels and marinas are under way wherever one looks. At Fuengirola’s leisure Port a EUR 2.2 million development has been approved that will see wider pedestrian pavements and better connections between the town centre and the Port, while elsewhere better road access to the A-7 motorway and therefore Nueva Andalucía has just been completed.
The Spanish Costas are changing per force – and this also means that an on-going programme is underfoot simplifying the property buying process for foreign buyers as well as streamlining paperwork for smaller construction projects such as home improvements costing less than EUR 1,000.
In the past potential international buyers were put off by the complexity and vagaries of Spanish planning laws, particularly where restoration projects in rural communities were concerned. From now on, such small scale construction works only need to be reported to the relevant Town Hall prior to work commencing. An official license in no longer required.
The Spanish government is doing everything it can to make buying a property at the Costas and elsewhere a far easier and more enjoyable experience. Moving permanently to the Costa del Sol, be it to glamorous Marbella, homely Fuengirola or cosmopolitan Malaga, has been a happy decision for many people over the past decade. With excellent road access to Malaga it’s easy to see great works of art like Picasso’s painting Lobster and Cat, currently on loan from the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum New York and exhibited at Malaga’s Picasso Museum and Marbella’s beach clubs, bars, restaurants and nightclubs are world famous, as is Puerto Banus, the exciting marina where the fashionable jet-set moors its super yachts.
In total, the 1st Spanish Tourism Strategies Conference held recently in Torremolinos discussed some 800 new measures to encourage holidaymakers to the region – improved tourism will spill over to the property market, as second homes are being sought by those who enjoy regular visits to the Costa del Sol and young families who come on a more casual basis seek self-catering accommodation rather than opt for hotel stays. Prices should therefore rise within the next couple of years.
Luxury Spanish property like apartments in Marbella’s Puerto Banus district start at prices of around EUR 240,000 for key-ready real estate within a 5 drive of the famous marina.