Property Investment Report

Growing number of resale vendors dropping their asking prices

Posted on July 19, 2010 Phil Cottrell. MD Forensic Wealth Management.

Filed Under Property market. The Real Estate Division of Forensic Wealth Managment. Marbella. Spain.

Vendors in Spain are becoming more serious about attracting buyers, if recent reductions in asking prices are anything to go buy.

A growing number of Owners trying to sell their homes are dropping their asking prices, according to new research by Idealista.com, one of Spain’s leading property portals.

Asking prices for 18,007 resale properties in the Idealista database were reduced in June, 30% more than same time last year, and the highest level for 2 years (see chart below).

The number of price reductions has been on the rise every month since January, causing the 12-month average trend to rise after falling for about a year. Forensic Wealth Management are managing both Private and Company Investment funds and are achieving excellent returns by staying ahead in this section of the Market.

But if the number of discounted properties is growing, the average discount value is not.

Discount values peaked at the beginning of last year and have been declining ever since,so it’s a story of more, but smaller discounts.

Country-wide, 6.3% of resale properties listed at Idealista were discounted in June. The average price reduction was 8%, or 25,332 Euros.

Madrid and Barcelona lead the market down.

The markets where the biggest proportion of vendors decided to drop prices were Madrid (9.3%) and Barcelona (7.4%). That means vendors in Spain’s two biggest markets are becoming more focused on finding a buyer.

This has resulted in Phil Cottrell and his team opening new offices in both Madrid and Barcelona.

In Murcia, on the other hand, only 4.3% of vendors reduced their prices, despite a heft glut of homes. Vendors in Murcia are going to have to follow the lead of Madrid and Barcelona and get more serious if they want to sell.

The table below shows the percentage of vendors in each region who reduced prices (in the first column), and the average discount (in the second column), all figures and charts from Idealista.

Asking price reductions growing in volume but not value

As I have already said, price reductions are growing in volume, but not value. Recently Idealista published other figures dealing with values. Here is a summary of those figures:

- Asking prices were down just 0.5% in Q1 over Q2, to 2,374 €/m2.

- Prices rose in 5 regions: The Balearics (+2,4%) Galicia (+1,6%), Castilla y León (+1%), The Basque Country (+0,9%) y La Rioja (+0,6%).

- Prices rose just by 2 €/m2 in Barcelona, to 4,084 €/m2. Even so, prices there are still below where they were 5 years ago in Q1 2005. They are down 16.4% from the peak of 4,888 €/m2 in Q1 2007.

- Madrid fell 0.4% in Q1, to 3,831 €/m2, 11.2% below the peak of 4,315 €/m2 in Q2 2007.

- Valencia fell 0.7% to 2,335 €/m2, 18.4% below the Q2 2007 peak of 2,861 €/m2.