UK voted worst place to live in Europe for quality of life whilst Spain is the second best place to live

May 22, 2012 – 9:41 am

The UK has been voted the worst place to live in Europe for quality of life, according to uSwitch. The high cost of living, later retirement age and lack of holidays have pushed the UK into bottom place, behind Poland, Germany, Ireland and Sweden.

Top of the list for the third year running is France, second place goes to Spain while Italy falls into third.

Although the average net income in the UK is one of the highest in Europe, everyday living costs are far greater with the price of unleaded petrol, alcohol and cigarettes way above the European average.

The study was conducted by looking at 16 different factors, including income and the cost of essential goods along, with lifestyle factors such as hours of sunshine, life expectancy, working hours and holiday entitlement.

Today just 5% of us are happy living in the UK, while 12% admit to wanting to emigrate. When asked what the worst thing about living in the UK was, 59% said it was Britain’s broken society, while 49% blamed the cost of living and 47% cited crime and violence.

Ann Robinson, spokesperson for uSwitch.com, says: “We may still be enjoying the fourth-highest household income in Europe, but the high cost of living means that we’re living to work. When coupled with many of the issues facing households in the UK today it’s not surprising that one in ten of us have contemplated starting a new life abroad.

“For those of us who decide to stay put and ride out the storm, there will be no choice but to batten down the hatches. Cutting back where possible to help combat our high living costs will go some way to improving our quality of life.”

Rank Countries VAT Working hours per week Number of holiday days per year Retirement age Cost of fuel (per litre) Food prices (GBP)
1 France 19.6% 38.0 36 60 £1.31 £120.78
2 Spain 18% 38.6 39 62.3 £1.15 £124.54
3 Italy 20% 37.8 31 60.1 £1.33 £125.22
4 Holland 19% 30.6 31 63.5 £1.43 £122.51
5 Germany 19% 35.7 29 62.2 £1.33 £123.88
6 Denmark 25% 33.5 36 62.3 £1.40 £130.09
7 Poland 23% 40.6 38 59.3 £1.10 £137.72
8 Sweden 23% 36.5 38 61.4 £1.35 £126.78
9 Ireland 21% 35.0 29 64.1 £1.28 £112.62
10 UK 20% 36.4 28 63 £1.33 £145.30
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Asking prices for property in Spain fall

May 17, 2012 – 11:11 am

Property prices on the slide in Tenerife and Spain

Asking prices for Spanish homes fell 9.5pc over 12 months to the end of April, according to data from Idealista, a Spanish property portal.

With Spain back in recession, and banks refusing to lend on anything but their own properties, home owners trying to sell have no alternative but to drop their prices. The average resale property in Spain now has an asking prices of 1,993 €/m2, down from 2,202 €/m2 a year ago. On a monthly basis, asking prices fell 1pc in April.

Asking prices fell the most in Castilla La Mancha, Navarra , Murcia, and Extremadura, and the least in Castilla y Leon, La Rioja and Galicia.

You can read the full monthly house (asking) price index report from Idealista  here (pdf in Spanish)

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Spanish house prices back to levels of seven years ago

May 10, 2012 – 2:17 pm

Tenerife and Spanish property prices down to levels seen seven years ago

Spanish house prices have fallen back to where they where seven years ago, according to the Government’s House Price Index (Fomento). House prices fell 7.2pc in Q1 compared to the same time last year.

The average cost of housing in Euros/m2 now stands at 1,649€/m2, basically where it was at the start of 2005, when the Government first started publishing this particular index. This index isn’t totally reliable but it does help to illustrate the house prices are clearly going down.

By Angela | Posted in Economy, General, Holiday, Miscellaneous Articles, Property, Tenerife | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Latest Tinsa property prices.

May 9, 2012 – 1:03 pm

Latest Tinsa property prices for Tenerife and Spain

Spanish property prices fell again in April, according to TINSA. The firm’s latest report saw that IMIE General Index of real estate values declined by 12.5 per cent last month, marking a cumulative drop of 29.8 per cent from, the market peak at the end of 2007.

The Mediterranean coast continues to record the biggest falls in year-on-year prices, with a decrease of 14.3 per cent in the area’s prices compared to 2011. This was closely followed by “Capitals and Major Cities” which fell by 13.7% compared to the same month last year. In both cases the decline was higher than the market average.

Below the market average were the “Balearic and Canary Islands” which fell by 12.3% year-on-year, followed by “Metropolitan Areas” with 12%; while the lowest declines were recorded by “Other Municipalities”, defined as those not included in the other segments, which recorded a fall of 10.6%.

In terms of cumulative declines from the top of the market by segment, the “Mediterranean Coast” was down by a total of 37% in April; followed by “Capitals and Major Cities” with 32.8%, Metropolitan Areas” with 30.7%, “Balearic and Canary Islands” with 26.9% and lastly “Other Municipalities” with 24.2%

By Angela | Posted in Economy, General, Health, Holiday, Inspirational, Miscellaneous Articles, Property, Tenerife, Things to Do | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

More misery for the Spanish property market?

May 2, 2012 – 12:54 pm

More property investment misery in Tenerife and Spain?

The Spanish property market faces more misery with average residential prices expected to fall by a further 18% before finally bottoming out, according to Barclays Capital. The British investment bank says that the decline in values will add to the 22% price drop witnessed since the Spanish property market crashed in 2008. The bank’s latest report claims that Spanish home prices will drop by up to 35% before reaching the bottom of the downturn. But the reality is that property price falls nationwide have been far steeper and have already depreciated by 40%, on average. In fact, this rate of fall has been confirmed by Spain’s Minister for the Economy, suggesting that Barclays Capital’s data is largely unreliable. “So Barclays Capital are right to say that prices might fall 40% in total, but wrong to say that means another 18% of declines to come,” says Spanish property commentator Mark Stucklin. “We are already almost there [at the bottom], certainly when it comes to holiday homes on the coast.”

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Spain back in “crisis mode”, but affordable property good news for investors

April 23, 2012 – 9:31 am

Spain in crisis,but property in Tenerife is good value for investors

Spain is back in “full crisis mode”, according to one bank, as property prices continue to plummet. “It is looking more and more likely that Spain is going to have some form of bailout,” Rabobank told OPP. “Assuming there is not an (ECB) intervention, you would not see a cap on Spanish yields, they would just keep increasing.” After the country’s 10-year boom came to a messy end in 2007, Spain’s economy has been dropping like a stone, taking the property market with it. Mortgages payments are rising as rates of inflation rise to 3.4 per cent and banks are left in a vulnerable position, holding one-fifth of the country’s 1 million vacant homes. The new Spanish government are introducing austerity measures to recoup lost finance, including cuts to education and health, but with almost five million unemployed and the economy still shrinking, the return of recession is “likely to suppress local demand”, according to Reuters columnist Maharg-Bravo. But more affordable property remains good news for overseas investors, as real estate values continue to decline at 22 per cent to 29 per cent each year. 

 Tenerife, with it’s beaches and sunshine is still attracting investment from overseas.

By Angela | Posted in Economy, General, Health, Holiday, Miscellaneous Articles, Property, Tenerife, Things to Do, Weather | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Average price of a home fell by 11.5% in March compared to last year

April 18, 2012 – 9:43 am

 

Property prices continue to slide in Tenerife and Spain

Vendors have been forced to slash property prices across the country in order to have any chance of realistically attracting a serious buyer, but with the well documented Spanish property crash showing no sign of abating, prices look set to fall further.

Despite claims from some estate agents and developers in Spain that market conditions are improving, it would seem that they are actually getting worse.

The average price of home in Spain fell by 11.5% in March compared to the corresponding month last year, according to Spain’s most widely-watched annualised House Price Index compiled by Tinsa, a leading property valuation firm. The annualised decline in Spanish property is the highest since the housing crash got underway over four years ago.

Spanish home prices have, on average, now dropped by 28.6% since the crisis started in December 2007 and by 35% along the coast, where the greatest glut of homes are located.

Advisory firm R.R. de Acuna & Asociados recently projected that the average price of a home in Spain will fall by 12%-14% this year – the most since the National Statistics Institute started tracking values in 2007.

Fernando Rodriguez de Acuna Martinez, a partner at the advisory company, said: “There will be more serious price drops this year because of the government decree.” What  could happen to prices beyond 2012? With unemployment standing at 23%, which is higher than Greece, and given that Spain is deep in a recession, with greater austerity measures to come, it would appear that prices still have a long way to fall.

Bankinter estimates that housing prices will fall an additional 6% to the end of 2013, but the reality is that the decline is likely to be greater and for longer.

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Increasing numbers of Scandinavians are taking advantage of the crisis to buy holiday homes in Spain

April 17, 2012 – 9:34 am

Scandanavian buyers of property are looking to Tenerife and Spain for investment

According to a recent article at the website Investment Europe, “Figures published by Fastighetsbyrån, part of Swedish banking group Swedbank, suggest Swedish and Norwegian property buyers have pushed hard into the Spanish residential property market, as British and German buyers have withdrawn in the past half-decade.”

The article goes onto explain that “over the four year period, the number of UK buyers has dropped by 65% and German buyers by 3%. However, the number of Norwegian buyers is up 108%, and Swedes by 138%. The total market is still down 33% from its 2007 peak, the figures also suggest.”

Scandinavians are tempted by Spanish property, their economies are relatively strong, as are their currencies (the Norwegian and Swedish Krone/Krona have both risen by around 5pc against the Euro since the Spanish property bubble burst at the end of 2007, whilst the British Pound has fallen almost 20pc); Spanish property prices on the coast are down around 50pc or more from the peak, and the sun doesn’t shine much back at home. So Scandinavian buyers are taking advantage of the market to snap up bargains on the Mediterranean coast, and who can blame them?

Scandinavian buyers are not a panacea for the glut of holiday homes on the coast. For a start, with the pick of the best properties, I doubt they will be tempted by  the cheaper end of the market on the coast that also needs to be sold.  Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of them to take the place of the retreating Brits, who dominated the market during the boom.

By Angela | Posted in Economy, General, Health, Holiday, Inspirational, Miscellaneous Articles, Property, Tenerife, Things to Do, Weather | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The biggest annualised fall in Spanish property prices since the crisis began

April 16, 2012 – 8:35 am

Average Spanish house prices fell 11.5pc in March compared to the same time last year, according to the latest data from Tinsa, one of Spain’s biggest appraisal companies.

House prices fall in Tenerife and the Canary Islands in Spain's slump

That represents the biggest fall in the index since the crisis began and since Tinsa started publishing this index.

Housing on the coast, where most holiday homes are located, fell 10,79pc, marginally less than the national average. Prices in the Balearics and the Canaries were down 9.71pc.

Peak (Dec. 2007) to present, average national prices have fallen 28.6pc and by 35pc on the coast, all according to the Tinsa Index.

By Angela | Posted in Economy, General, Holiday, Miscellaneous Articles, Property, Tenerife, Things to Do | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Banks forced to sell properties in Spain cheaply.

April 5, 2012 – 3:09 pm

Banks forced to sell properties cheaply in Spain and Tenerife

Banks are going to be forced to sell properties in Spain cheaply, accelerating a four year decline in residential property values that are already 30% below the peak reached in 2007. Most Spanish property market commentators agree that home prices in the country still have a long way to fall. But despite historically low demand and a glut of homes on the market, vendors, residential developers, estate agents and banks have been reluctant to slash property prices sufficiently to meet today’s perceived market value, in order to avoid major losses.

But Economy Minister Luis de Guindos is now leaning on lenders to make €50bn (£42bn) of additional provisions and capital charges for losses linked to real estate over the next two years. Consequently, residential property prices are now poised to fall the most on record this year, leaving a quarter of all home owners in negative equity, as the government forces the banks to sell real estate holdings.

According to research conducted by advisory firm R.R. de Acuna & Asociados, the average price of a home in Spain will fall by 12%-14% this year. That’s the most since the National Statistics Institute started tracking values in 2007.

Based on an analysis of 800,000 mortgages, Standard & Poor’s forecasts borrowers with negative equity may increase to 25% this year, up from 8% in 2010. “There will be more serious price drops this year because of the government decree,” said Fernando Rodriguez de Acuna Martinez, a partner at the Madrid-based firm. “Banks are now prepared to incur big losses on real estate to shift all they can.”

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