(1888PressRelease)
February 25, 2007 - Brits looking for a home on one of the famous costas or even inland can make the investment "much easier" than if they were to do the same at home, says a report by Lar Sol seen by property expert SPC.
The Spanish government has made economic conditions far easier for investors by introducing income and corporation tax cuts and they have also slashed income taxes on mortgages.
And it appears that this ease of buying is having a big impact on the number of second home hunters from abroad. According to statistics released earlier this month by Spain's National Statistics Institute, over four million foreigners now live in the country, comprising 9.3 per cent of the population, reports 1casa.com.
This is a remarkable influx considering only 2.3 per cent of the population was born in a foreign country seven years ago. In addition, over 2.5 million foreign residence cards were issued last year demonstrating how those who are buying property in the Iberian peninsula are just as likely to stay in Spain as they are to use their asset for investment purposes.
Cataluna, Madrid and Valencia proved to be popular among immigrants but Alicante topped the list and non-Spanish nationals now make up a fifth of the province's entire population.
When these figures are collated with a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) last year, it is clear that many of the foreigners in Spain are now Brits. The IPPR found that over 198,000 Britons headed for foreign climes in 2005, mainly due to the freedom afforded by a strong pound and booming UK house prices.
But it is not just a dream lifestyle that investment-hungry Brits are looking for when they flee Albion's shores. Research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors recently showed that property prices in Spain grew by a healthy 11 per cent last year, higher even than the seemingly rampant UK market, which jumped by around ten per cent.
"Globally, what's happened now is there are a lot of people not just buying a second home but finding that investing in real estate makes money," said David Simister, chairman of the real-estate company CBRE, reports Jurnalo.com.
"People are very savvy investors," he continued. "They know property is an appreciating asset and absolute beachfront or ocean view is a finite commodity."
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