Regardless of the impact of Covid-19 on the Spanish housing market, quality properties have value and always find buyers when the price is correct. This fact was recently brought into my mind when a quality property (image) was sold on the Barcelona market for three years in a day with various buyers after the price was right. عقارات
It was a high-speed refurbishment in a good location not far from the beach in the district Barcelona of Poblenou, with appeal towards all sorts of guests and an excellent rental potential (think yields of 5 percent or more). It finally sold in no time after three years on the market, starting at €700,000, and the deal price fell below €600,000.
Spain is one of the world's most important democracies, Europe's fourth largest economy, and the world's most popular tourist destination, regardless of its shortcomings and the future. If you can afford to buy Spanish property, or both, as an investment, or as a lifestyle choice, and if the price looks right it makes sense. Covid-19 isn't going to change that.
If you worry, as many do, about high inflation, it makes sense to look for investments such as property that protect your wealth against inflation. Quality property in Spain fits in with this bill if you can afford it very easily (I recommend that no-one purchase property in Spain unless they can afford it comfortably without taking any rental potential into account).
And if you can afford it, the coronavirus crisis will create some buyer opportunities, as the above example. Furthermore, the currently insane low borrowing cost means that you can get a fixed mortgage that also helps protect your wealth against inflation.
The Spanish Government has been given the green light by a Galicia judge to expropriate a country house without compensation occupied by the heirs of the dictator, Francisco Franco, who has been squatting on the property since his death.
It appears that in 1938, in a civil war, a group of supporters acquired the Pazo de Meirás (pictured), a type of galician manor house used by Franco as a summer residence, by a group of supporters, with forced subscriptions by many people that were not supporters and were donated to the 'head of the state,' not to Franco himself. His supporters did not differentiate between the man and his office at the time, but this now is a relevant difference.
Since then, his family have used the property as their own. Although friends tell me that the Spanish State has been collecting the bill for most of its operational costs. Finally, the State decided to get the keys back, but it took years to win the case to kick out the Franco family. As diligent readers will know, squatting is a major problem in Spain, and squatting can take a lot of time and money in court.
It seems that, in 1941, after Franco won the civil war, he fake a deed or a deed to make it look that he bought a property for himself, but he paid nothing for it and the judge ruled a fake deed, null and void.
The Franco family argued that the property was to be maintained for more than 80 years, but they also lost this argument, because the judge ruled that the family had "in bad faith" acquired this property. I'm told that running costs collected by the government over the years since the death of Franco far exceed the money that the family spends on maintenance, so it sounds like a spurious argument.
Franco's grandchildren will appeal the judgment, which they are saying to be "obviously political," of a left-wing Spanish government against their family and the dictator's historical legacy. I do not know if they can continue to use the property for many more years while the appeal falls through the Spanish legal system to see whether the state can now boot them out like squatters.
In 2019, the Franco family lost another battle with the Spanish Government over the remains of the mouldy dictator who moved from the Fallen Valley, a controversial civil war memorial to the North of Madrid, to a local cemetery.