How to avoid the common traps of the Spanish real estate market

According to media reports, the Spanish real estate market is becoming increasingly popular , including among the nations that usually have stayed out of it, like Poles. The vision of sunshine and higher temperatures all year round tempts many buyers, especially in winter, when the rest of the continent in Europe can count on sunny weather only a few days a month. From celebrities to friends - in insta stories we see them relaxing under palm trees and this dream is becoming more and more real for us.

The geopolitical situation also encourages investment in Spain: a stable country in the Eurozone, far from war zones, provides a rationally justified sense of security.

However, the process of buying real estate in Spain is not always as transparent as the cloudless sky there, so it is worth knowing what common traps await us. We ourselves have fallen into a few of them, and we have heard about a few others from our neighbours or clients, so we decided to collect them as a warning to future buyers.

"In Andalusia, fungus on the walls is the norm" I hear from an agent showing me an apartment from 2012. Is that really the case? Well, not entirely. However, it is true that building standards in this area are very different and you can come across some bad quality developers. This is where an unexpected advantage of buying from the secondary market comes into play, because you can thoroughly check the humidity of the walls if you decide to have a technical inspection of the apartment you are buying.

This type of defect, if it does appear, is difficult to camouflage and even if it has been covered with fresh paint, it will easily come out during the inspection. The cost is around 200-300 euros, which is not even 0.1% of the apartment’s value, but during such an inspection we will also find out about the condition of the electrical installation, air conditioning or insulation in the bathrooms.

"See you in court" because, as it turns out, the community is in dispute with the developer over a leaking pool (which means thousands of litres of water per week), lack of foundation insulation or even structural defects. Unfortunately, the lawyer did not inform us about this and the agent conveniently forgot to mention it. Such a dispute involves significant additional costs (one forensic assessment is several hundred euros per apartment). Besides, who wants to live on bad foundations or in a faulty structure?

However, there is a simple way to avoid this trap - ask for the minutes of the last community meeting. In Spain, according to the law, a meeting of the residents' community is held once a year, which must be documented in writing. The seller should provide the buyer of the apartment with the minutes of this meeting - if the community is in dispute, or significant expenses are foreseen due to technical problems, this will be described in such a report.

Being aware of any disputes and important community topics can help us avoid a high risk of problems. Weronika from Toruń, Poland recently bought a beautiful apartment in the area, but 3 days after moving in she met a neighbor, a Polish woman, who told her about a dispute for 20 million euros due to construction defects. Iza from Warsaw, Poland bought an apartment without foundation insulation. In both cases, every report from the community meeting contained clear information about these problems, but both ladies did not know that they could ask for them.

"Apartments sell like hot cakes" is what every report from the Spanish real estate market seems to tell us. We meet many clients who buy one of the four apartments shown to them, happy that they managed to find a “gem” and buy it for such a good price. We carry out a similar purchase in our home country with much more peace and reason, and in a foreign country we trust the agent we met 10 minutes ago, because after all he has been here for a few years, because he is a foreigner like us, etc. We have heard many times about transactions in which it turns out that the gem waits 6 months for the first visit of the interested parties.

So what can be done to avoid this? First of all, check similar ads on an ad portal, e.g. idealista.com. Find out what the price of other apartments in this building is, how long these ads have been “hanging”. See what the average price per m2 is in this commune, so as not to overpay (). It is worth checking how much an apartment is rented for short or long periods, looking for apartments in this area on Airbnb or Idealista and whether the rental price is proportional to the purchase price.

Another trap that awaits us is the disproportion between the new build properties and the second hand ones. In the Costa del Sol region, we have a lot of properties from 1999-2006 to choose from, or those that are being built right now. We face the choice of paying 2,000 euros/m2 for an old fashion interior or a double of the price per square meter for a nice and new apartment, but not double the standard.

Offers on the primary market in Spain already have fitted and finished kitchens and bathrooms. However, the quality of materials used by the developer often differs from the standard we may be accustomed to in our country. If it is to be a financial investment, with additional finishing work the rate of return immediately levels out significantly. So what should we do? Invest in properties up for renovation only if they have a good layout, surroundings and the view, then the purchase is most profitable. Buying a new apartment is convenient, but often also a compromise on something else.

After living here for a few years, we can safely say that it definitely is. As you can see, the pitfalls can be avoided, and the quality of life, the friendliness of the people and the call of adventure compensate for the risk in my opinion.

Seeing how the people we meet encounter the problems I described, my husband and I decided to open a company called Sunset Rental Sotogrande, which offers "personal property shopper" services and real estate services after the purchase. We support our clients in making investment decisions and accompany them at every stage of the transaction. Unlike real estate agents, we do not charge a commission: the client pays for the advice and we are guiding them through the process - regardless of the property they choose.