International Property Journal - News and information on global property markets

Apartments bordering golf courses in the once fast-growing Murcia region are selling for a 50 percent discount from peak prices, Bloomberg reports.

The units are in developments built by Polaris World, which developed six high-density projects around Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses in arid Murcia before the market collapse. The projects were primarily marketed in the U.K., where Polaris World ads touting the Spanish lifestyle were ubiquitous during the height of the building boom.

One of the largest corruption trials in Spanish history opened this week, focusing on charges that public officials were paid hundreds of millions of euro to approve developments along the Costa del Sol.

Ninety-five defendants are on trial, including two former mayors and Juan Antonio Roca, the former city planner for the ritzy city of Marbella, who allegedly collected more than 33 million euro in bribes from developers. Roca reportedly lived like a king, with vast estates, aircraft and rooms filled with collectible art.

In a surprise setback for protesters, an advocate general last week recommended the European court of justice table a complaint against Spain’s controversial land laws.

Activists, many of them expats, have challenged the so-called “land grab” laws in the region of Valencia, saying they violated European Union law. Local governments used the laws to charge homeowners fees and, in some cases, confiscate land to help build new developments.

While hardly a blast of optimism, Knight Frank’s just-released forecast for global residential property markets points to an industry returning to some degree of normalcy.

Sixty-one percent of countries surveyed by the property company reported positive value growth from 2009 to 2010, up from 35 percent in the previous 12 months. “Data from the second quarter of 2010 suggests that the recovery is continuing to spread,” Knight Frank says.

Taylor Wimpey's Pollentia Mar, Mallorca

Data compiled by developer Taylor Wimpey de España suggests a significant shift is taking place in the type of people buying property in Spain.

So far in 2010, only 19 percent of the company’s buyers have been over 55, compared to 31 percent in 2009. While the number of retirees has dropped, 80 percent of the buyers were between the ages of 30 and 55, compared to 68 percent the previous year.

After years of complaints and political challenges, the European Union’s Court of Justice is scheduled to review Spain’s notorious “land grab” laws next week.

During the boom years, many regional governments in Spain adopted laws allowing jurisdictions to annex land for new developments, in many cases with little or no compensation. Many of the properties were owned by expats, who bought in good faith, without knowing their property might be subject to seizure.

Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia were the strongest performing property markets in the world through the first part of 2010, while Europe continued to struggle with the economic tide.

Ireland was the worst performing market, posting a 16 percent drop in prices from a year earlier, compared to a 34 percent jump for Singapore, according to inflation-adjusted data tracked by the Global Property Guide.

Sifting through the rhetoric about declining growth rates and “easing” markets, the latest study of distressed commercial property reveals sharp divisions developing in global markets.

In particular, while the United States and western Europe continue to see substantial increased in distressed sales, Brazil, Russia, India and Hong Kong are among the markets showing signs of stabilization in foreclosures, according to the new survey by the RICS, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Prodded by a query from a journalist, Kyero.com managing director Martin Dell recently took on the daunting task of analyzing the vast array of conflicting data on the trends in Spanish property.

Eventually he compiled the numbers from 14 different reports tracking the Spanish market, focusing on three main sources—official data, valuation companies and property portals.

Beyond charting the laughable discrepancies in the government data, Dell concluded the “stand-out figure,” the one reliable fact, is that the number of property transactions has fallen approximately 56 percent from the peak of Spain’s real estate glory years.

Bargain hunting Spain property shoppers are increasingly targeting Alicante, the port city on the Costa Blanca, according to a new study.

More than one-third of the queries to Kyero.com in the first half of 2010 focused on Alicante, compared to 29 percent in 2009, the property portal says. Only 13 percent targeted Malaga, the gateway to the Costa del Sol, down from 14 percent in 2009.