WHY BUY IN SPAIN

You’ve just got to love Spain haven’t you? Since the 1950’s the country has been the European destination of choice for anybody seeking fun in the sun, thanks to its ability to cram every possible attraction into one complete package. A potent combination of wonderful weather, excellent beaches, a rich history and culture and an extremely welcoming people has ensured that Spain is the Number One destination for overseas property investment.

So how did it happen? Why do we holiday there in our droves and buy property there in our thousands (there are estimated to be 600,000 British-owned second homes in Spain)? As with much of Spain, the answer lies on the Costa del Sol. In the 1940’s, Marbella was a small, simple fishing village sat in a beautiful valley at the foot of the Sierra Las Nieves mountain range.

Then one day, as a normally smooth-running Rolls Royce ground to a halt in the area, the car’s inhabitants stepped out to take a closer look. So impressed were they with their surroundings, they decided to open up a hotel there. Oh, and they were a couple of extremely wealthy German Princes too (Prince Max Egon zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Alfonso of Hohenlohe), which obviously helped.

The Hotel Marbella Club, opened by the Princes in 1954, was the forerunner for Spain’s tourism boom. At the same time, commercial airlines were beginning to take passengers across Europe and economic stability was settling on the shoulders of many sun-starved North European countries. Soon, Spain was welcoming thousands of British, Irish, Dutch, German and Scandinavian visitors to its shores, as the Costa del Sol, the Costa Blanca and the Costa Brava grew and grew.

Resorts such as Benidorm, Torremolinos and Alicante catered for a wider market, and the budget package holiday was born.

As these tourists spent their two weeks lying on beaches, swimming in the sea and enjoying the laid back pace of life Spain was quickly becoming famous for, the notion spread: why don’t I live here? With stress and grey skies awaiting many back home, the idea of starting a new life in Spain proved too tempting for many. From the 1980s, a steady stream of Brits and Scandinavians began snapping up property in Spain, kickstarting the current trend for overseas property.

Today, the Spanish overseas property market is one of the strongest in the world. A ‘villa in Spain’ is still seen as the ultimate lifestyle accessory, with more and more Brits discovering that the dream is closer than they think.

The buying process is straightforward, Brits can move to, live in and work in Spain with no restrictions and the country’s economy is performing better than most of its EU counterparts.

‘The original and the best’ may be a cliché, but it is certainly the most fitting where Spain’s property market is concerned.