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Spanish property news roundup: Home exchanges and village for sale in Galicia

Esme Fox
Esme Fox - [email protected]
Spanish property news roundup: Home exchanges and village for sale in Galicia
Spanish property news roundup. Photo: domaa2 / Pixabay

Stay up-to-date on the latest Spanish property news with The Local's weekly roundup. This time, learn about the rise in popularity of home exchanges, how old average home buyers are in Spain and where you can buy a Galician village for €200,000.

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The average profile of a home buyer in Spain

The average home buyer in Spain is a person between 40 and 50 years old, with children and looking for their first residence, according to the Survey on Home Sellers, Buyers, Landlords and Tenants, presented by Spain's Federation of Associations Real Estate (FAI).

According to the report, 47.7 percent of people looking to buy a house in Spain are in that age group, and 63.8 percent have children. Around 37 percent are looking for homes between €100,000 and €150,000, while 25.9 percent have a budget of between €150,000 and €200,000.

Only 4.6 percent can afford homes of more than €300,000.

READ ALSO: Property in Spain: What’s it like to build your own house?

House exchanges grow in popularity

The process of home exchanges (permuta de viviendas in Spanish) has been growing in recent months in Spain. An alternative to a traditional sale, a home exchange is where you legally and permanently swap your house with someone else who has one of a similar value to yours.

Already this year, between January and July, 924 home exchanges were made, according to Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE). This is the highest figure accumulated in that period since 2015, although it is still well below the levels of the boom, when almost 7,100 exchanges were registered. 

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Like any conventional transaction, it is necessary to notarise the operation to avoid future problems and pay taxes. In addition, it is important to make sure that the home is free of charges and is up to date with all payments before making the exchange.

READ ALSO: ‘Nuda propriedad’: The pros and cons of selling your home in Spain while still living in it 

 

What are viviendas libres and where in Spain are they the cheapest?

Viviendas libres are those houses that have been built by and belong to companies or individuals who have not received any kind of help from the public sector, so their sale price is governed by the law of supply and demand.

Ciudad Real in Castilla y León, with an average price of €710.6 per square metre, was the cheapest province to buy a vivienda libre in the second quarter of 2021, according to statistics on the appraised value of housing recently published by Spain's Ministry of Development.

Extremadura in western Spain also proved to be one of the cheapest places for viviendas libres at €843,9 per square metre.

While the most expensive province was the province of Guipúzcoa in the Basque Country, where the price per square metre reached €2,751.2, the highest figure since the third quarter of 2013, when the price was 2,754.1.

At a national level, the average price of viviendas libres rose by 2.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2021, to reach 1,649.2 per square metre. 

 

Galician village is up for sale for €200,000

A Galician village with sea views is up for sale for the price of €200,000.

The small village of Candelago sits just one kilometre away from the Costa da Morte and comprises around 10 houses and granaries. The houses have long been abandoned and are in various states of disrepair.  

Photo: Galician Rustic (visit the listing here)

More than a decade ago, a group of owners considered converting the place into a rural tourism complex, but the project fell apart so they decided to put it up for sale. However, to this day it still remains up for sale as the current group of three owners have to leave Galicia.

You can find out more about the village here

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1,000 new bank-owned apartments for sale from €25,000

The real estate agent Aliseda, owned by Banco Santander, has put up 1,000 new apartments for sale owned by banks, spread over 211 new construction developments throughout Spain.

The cheapest of these homes is located in the town of Calera y Chozas in Toledo, central Spain - a new two-bedroom apartment for only €23,610.

There are also several new constructions for less than €50,000.

These can be found in provinces bordering Madrid such as Toledo, Guadalajara and Ávila, as well as in the Valencian province of Castellón.

In Galicia, there are some for sale in the provinces of Lugo and A Coruña, and in the provinces of Lleida in Catalonia, Almería in Andalusia and across Murcia. 

 

If you want to read more property news, you can see last week’s round-up here

 

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