Spain, record property investments

"Twenty years ago we were Pigs. Today we are in the "Top 3" of the most attractive countries for real estate investments in Europe. And we are on the right side of the business. With a mixture of pride and awareness that the challenge now will be to transform a positive cycle into a structural trend, it was Portuguese Pedro Coelho (CEO of Square Asset Management) who illustrated last Tuesday why Spain will increasingly be a popular destination for the real estate business.
The setting was The District, the Iberian real estate trade fair held in Barcelona from Tuesday to Thursday last, in which Italy participated this year with an important institutional delegation as host country. With the German locomotive seized up, the turbulence in France and the lowering of rates in recent months, the market has rewarded the relative stability of Spain and Italy.

"Especially the former,' explains Sergio Fernandez, head of capital market Jll Spain, 'due to a mix of factors: the economy is growing by 2.5% and real estate is the mirror of a 'healthy' system; demographics are growing twice as fast as the EU average due to strong immigration (skilled and unskilled) from Central and South American countries, which also attracts many university students in the 20 or so cities that make up the country's urban network, with Madrid and Barcelona at the top. Then there is tourism. After Covid, Spain has become even more of a summer home for families from northern Europe and the buen retiro of their pensioners: the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, but also the entire coastline from Barcelona to Andalusia.

Secondo l’ultimo snapshot di Colliers – che oltre alle transazioni, ricomprende, per tutte le asset class anche le riconversioni e le vendite di terreni – il volume di tutti gli investimenti del comparto immobiliare, in Spagna, nel primo semestre ha raggiunto gli 8,2 miliardi (in Italia siamo sopra ai 5 miliardi) in crescita del 44% rispetto allo stesso periodo del 2024. Con una crescita del 20% (pari a 1,7 miliardi) per gli hotel e del 52% (pari a quasi 1,5 miliardi, il segmento in maggiore crescita oltre a quello degli alternatives) per il residenziale. Che in Spagna si traduce soprattutto in flex living, alloggi in affitto a breve-medio termine che combinano flessibilità e servizi, a metà tra l’offerta alberghiera e quella residenziale tradizionale. Queste soluzioni hanno un rendimento lordo di circa il 5%, superiore al built to rent (costruito per l’affitto a più lungo termine, pari al 4,15% annuo) e anche agli studentati (che rendono non oltre il 4,7 per cento).

For Alberto Díaz, managing director of capital markets at Colliers Spain, 'by 2025, we will have 30% more global investments in Spain than in 2024. This is Spain's moment and we must seize it'.

"High-skilled tourists coming from Northern Europe," explained Paloma Pérez Bravo, neo-CEO Residential of Lucas Fox, "mostly decide to 'live' Spain, to integrate, maintaining a link with family or property in their country of origin. That is why flex living is an excellent solution for living, for example at least six months a year, in Spain. For others, however, it is a first step that may last a few years before deciding to buy, definitively".