Hi All,

I bought 2 apartments (for investment) in Manilva,, off-plan adjacent to golf, south facing, large terraces. This was 2 years ago. When the right time came to sell them i.e. before I had to sign the mortgage agreements, I put them up for sale, priced to include a very modest profit, but had no takers. I am now paying the mortgages on them and will have to sell them at cost or less.

Is buying off-plan dead in the water, or did I just pick the wrong product or the wrong area?

Is Manilva on the Costa del Sol? If so, then you bought in the wrong area I´m afraid. There are lots of stories about how on the CDS resale properties (ie, yours) are now cheaper than off-plan.

In certain other areas of Spain it is still the other way around, ie buying off-plan is cheaper than resales.

Just unlucky and bad timing , rent them out and bide your time , the market will come back .
Regarding the mortgages ,,better put plenty of overtime in maybe

I thought you thought buying off plan was the curse of all mankind

Wrong price?

or the wrong area?

25 years ago I thought. There's a lot of building going on between Torremolinos and Estepona, but it'll be nice when it's finished

That is exactly the problem, a zillion for sale and a million buyers.
Loads of sellers that cant even get enough lets to pay the mortgage while they wait.

It is helpful that mortgages are quite cheap at present so the cost isn't that bad. If you want to sell then I think the price might have to come down because of all the competition. It also depends on whether the properties are unique and stand out in some way or whether they are just two of hundreds of the same style 2+2.

Hi All,

Reading you replies makes me think that I bought in the wrong area.

I have decided to have a website built to attract buyers for my 2 apts in Manilva.

Is investing in a website a good idea?

I think it’s the same all over Spain, I feel lucky for one as I didn’t buy for investment but quality of life and that seems to be working out for me. There are hundreds no thousands of houses here in Costa de luz never lived in or used, and are up for sale well over market value. The sales reps still claim massive returns on investments and continually get people to buy several houses on deposits to sell before completion. They all seem to claim to personally know the wealthy bloke down the road, who made his fortune in two years, but going into such investments. If it is so guaranteed why aren’t they doing it? (Because it is more profitable getting commissions) A board of commission should be set up to see if deliberate misleading sales representation is going on, and make them pay, a bit like they did in the UK with endowments.

I am sure most people whom have ended up with more than one property or property and land, only intended to by a one house but got sucked in by the sales reps.

Or am I wrong? Lets hear from some people who have made there fortunes

I'd put it on some holiday web sites .... having your own is fine, but the amount of visitors thesee holiday sites get is tremendous. OK theres a lot of competition too, but if you have a decent property and pictures it will stand out. We used www.holiday-rentals.co.uk

I´d agree with Mitzy. Your own page wouldn´t get enough hits to take it near the top of the google searches.

Here´s a few others:

www.holidaylettings.co.uk
www.ownersdirect.co.uk
www.spain-holiday.com
www.casaspain.com
www.travel-library.com
www.spain-rentals-direct.com
www.holidaylets.net

Hi, thanks for that tip. It sounds like a good idea. I’ll have a look at the site you recommend and also research some others.

If you’ve had either a bad or I hope a good experience in Spain with an off plan investment please let us know how it worked out?

We´ve had a good experience. Two infact. We bought one house off-plan which we are living in at the moment and an apartment off-plan which was for an investment. The house we have sold and are just about to move to another property. We sold it for 80,000 euros more than we bought it for a couple of years ago.

The apartment we plan to hang onto for some considerable years. It´s in a developing area and we would like to see the area established before we think about selling it. Maybe in 10 years time or something. I´m confident the return will be good.

Well good and bad. We bought this off plan 2-3 years ago and everything went perfectly. Generally happy with the build, the view is spectacular, but when we came to pick up the escuitura we discovered there wasn't one. Built on rural land. Won't go into the gory details but luckily I changed to a good abogado and its been sorted now. It was unnecessary hassle and could have been avoided, but now you know why I always advocate getting a recommended independent solicitor