BBC Watchdog
 

There was another program of the 'illegal homes' and rip-offs in Spain variety the other evening. You should see the comments from - presumably - unhappy home-owners...
BBC Watchdog: 'spanish Dreams Reduced to Rubble'

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Well if you follow the posters on this forum all those commentators must be lying:rofl: Everything is great.

Seriously, anyone who buys a home on the spanish costas now is a bun short of a dozen!

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Well we are on a Spanish Costa, Costa Tropical, over seven years here and yes all is great. Ok we bought an older Spanish house and definately not a bun short of a dozen.

Most posters here are happy with their lot, some are not, but hey ho lots of rose tinted glasses put there:unsure:

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Fortune favours the brave, as I remember well from the last Spanish recession.
Those who have the bottle to dive in and buy in desperate times of little confidence,uncertainty and markets getting towards bottoming out with low prices are generally those who will make a killing.
Same applies to many aspects of investment and business opportunities.
Looking back in hindsight for those who missed the boat, it can then become much clearer who was a bun short of a dozen....Seriously!;)

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Yes we did well out of the last recession. Bought a villa and two apartments. Made around 300% on the apartments...sold at the top of the market, thank God:) However the last recession didn't have thousands of illegal properties hanging about! Fortune may favour the brave but not the stupid!

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

I can assure you there were thousands of illegal properties around back then, many of which strictly peaking are still illegal today.
In addition I came across many with no escrituras at all, plus lots more that had embargoes slapped on them which took many years to sort out.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Interesting - will there be a tipping point (I'm sure it's not now, but maybe in a couple of years) when the prices hit a bottom, and then a new wave of buyers move in? Or can we safely say people won't buy holiday homes on the Costas again? I'm not sure any of us can be 100% sure.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Be careful though - it seems that if you default on Spanish mortgage payments, the banks can take your UK property :eek:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...iday-flat.html

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Not much sympathy from me I'm afraid.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

That will no doubt scare a lot of ppl. half to death, having thought they were on safe ground, after returning to the UK.

So many ppl. just don't seem able to apply a little basic common sense to their financial affairs these days, and end up sticking their necks out far too far, without considering the possibility of a future recession or more difficult times for a host of other reasons.

At the end of the day they need to remember that Bankers still Rule, and will always insist on their pound of flesh, or quite a bit more, at the end of the day.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

no sympathy here either.

holiday home will be repo d, sold in an auction attended by errr, the bank managers brother, & the shortfall chased, plus costs.

some of the current prices in Spain would clear out most UK homes.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

It may have been a foolish risk to take on two homes (why wasn't the UK mortgage paid down over the 20 years?) but I still feel some sympathy. Losing one house may be unlucky - losing two must be a real kick in the teeth. How do you come back from that?

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

it's tough & I do feel for them, but I prefer to see the sum negative equity of repos being targeted at the perpetrators, not smeared across the whole tax paying community.

Banks are businesses & are already v expensive.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

I do feel sympathy for people in that situation. Who could have forecast what happened in October, 2007? The best brains in the world missed it.

Had it not happened, people would have carried on paying their mortgages and enjoying life, as they had intended when they bought their second home in Spain – and we’re not talking about palaces here, just a little holiday flat where the mortgage could have been paid instead of paying for a couple of expensive hotel holidays every year.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

I don't understand the situation with these two.

They had a 140k mortgage in Spain and a 250k mortgage in the UK. They say they couldn't afford the payments but with the lower interest rates the payments must have gone down considerably over the last year.

They are both employed as paramedics so their income will not have gone down.

A bit odd?

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

I would suggest they bought it with the expectation that it would be self financing and they could rent out when not using it themselves.

I don't know what a paramedic earns? 390K in mortgage seems a lot for a couple with two teenage kids to support.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Too many of them watch TV programs like Place in the Sun!
They believe what they hear about expected rental income,... but we all of us here know that there are and have been for many years now unoccupied holiday rentals by the thousand.

Of course the banks play a huge part in all of this, and we have to ask ourselves why they let a couple run up such a large dept in the first place.

Things didn't get so messy in the days when the banks would only lend on one income not two, and they certainly wouldn't have financed a second home mortgage until the first one was fully paid up.

Perhaps people should learn once more to cut the coat according to the width of the cloth!

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Yes I have seen some of those programmes. Amanada Lamb saying some dump would rent for £400 pw:rofl:

Something not right about that story in the DM. Would be interested to see the outcome.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

I think I may have met the people concerned in that article.

If it is the same people that I have met, I thought they were over-reaching themselves at the time.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

Ah - so it's your fault - you should have said something at the time !! ;)

Only joking. But I have a little sympathy for those caught up in the housing bubble. You could see all manner of idiot/wise investors making money by borrowing vast amounts of money to buy property, as house values "only ever went up". Why work hard when you could make money as you slept? In fact those of us who either chose not to buy, or (in my case) because we didn't have the steady job/regular income, were derided as fools. Perhaps we were, as many did make a packet on the housing helter-skelter. But I can't blame those who speculated, as for a time it was indeed easy money, made possible by lax lending from the banks. Who are now being baled-out by us, the taxpayers.

Re: BBC Watchdog
 

I hasten to add I don't know the people well! I met them briefly at someone else's house, also we gave them a lift to the airport once, and they were telling me all about their 'grand designs' and I remember thinking it was all going to end in tears.

I didn't know them well enough to say what I thought!