JLFS

Not all ghost town were built for expats on the costas...

Take a look at this monstrous place, it was built for 30k people, and is an unfinished ghost town.

Values of the properties have fallen through the floor, and they anre unsaleable.

The people who actually live there, have no facilities.

Hell or what?

It made a pertinent point that for the very first time, people in Spain have lost faith in the property market, it is not seen as the asset it once was.

That goes against what the older generation have always believed, as most would rather be cash poor, but asset (property) rich.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-5million.html

jimenato

We drove past there a few years ago. I can't imagine why anyone would want to live there in good times or bad.

sujee

It reminds me of East Berlin before the wall came down!

bobd22

Looks an awful place imagine if you were one of the few that bought and do live in it must be dreadful. Spain may be one of the worst affected but house prices in the UK certainly in the North East have plummeted as well. They keep coming up with average price increasing etc but believe me up here massive fall I know I have just downsized and after 2 years took a big hit on what I thought I could get (still in profit overall as had house 16yrs), but like it or not a house is worth what someone will pay for it not what an estate agent tells you it's worth. Bad times all over lets just hope at sometime there is an improvement for the sake of the youngsters.

cricketman

Because it was a lot cheaper than living in Madrid even at peak prices

It was meant as a commutor town where most people would be getting the fast train into Madrid

You are right though, it pretty much looks like hell on earth. Big tower blocks stuck in a load of scrub land.

The flats actually arent too bad though. It is just shocking to British eyes who prefer houses, but plenty of blocks like this are in the Northern cities and they are relatively luxurious, normally got good kitchens and bathrooms, terracing and wooden floors. These blocks have a swimming pool and gardens in the middle of them.

steviedeluxe

They also look worse than a few years later, when various clean-ups and "greening" take place - this video shows what Torrejon council have done in their region (which includes Soto de Henares - the place people were talking of being a ghost town a few years back, not now that people are moving in)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g6Y5eL04dc

For me Sesena is just too far out - 80 kms south of Madrid. Which is probably why prices there are low compared to Madrid itself, or even outlying towns like Alcobendas or even Alcala de Henares. Eventually though the properties will get bought (and we're talking years) because the demand for housing in Madrid is very high.

cricketman

What they've done there looks amazing. Good to see the positive side of the ayuntamientos!

I hate to think how much that cost though

HBG

I drove past two gigantic, half-finished urbanisations at Los Montesinos and Quesada last night, one of the few times I've seen them in the dark. Very few lights were on and only something like one in a hundred properties appeared occupied, on the finished parts of the urbanisations.

Yet, in daylight you can see that the houses are well built, but perhaps a bit too close together. The main difference between these and the ones at Madrid is that here some major local shops on the urbanisation like Consum and Lidl are open and trading well, along with bars and pet shops and the giant Malaysian Wok we were heading for.

I doubt if the urbanisations will ever be finished, the developers are all in administration.

agoreira

Many of those type highlighted here, miles of apartments with nobody in them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Dli...eature=related

HBG

At the end of that YouTube clip the commentator said that 'Spanish people tend to be a bit lazy and corrupt, and as long as they had the Peseta to devalue, they got away with it'.

I would have agreed with his words if he had added 'some' before the word Spanish.

bob_bob

The development in The Mail looks a right dump, sort of thing they used to build in eastern Europe, you could green it over all you want it would still be the pits

Stick a big wall around it and turn it into a prison would be a viable option, looks the part already

VFR

Jesus that is painful to watch & I assume the camera operator was drunk, mmmh ? no on drugs maybe given some of the god awful excuse for music.

cricketman

Thanks for that piece of xenofobia, my family and I appreciate it

steviedeluxe

How's this for an idea. Where you get a true "ghost town" urbanisation (ie no-one has bought or moved in) then it gets converted to a prison camp and rented out to the British government. We're always being told that UK prisons are overflowing. A cheap alternative here? I'm sure a few locals wouldn't mind working as prison officers - although I'm equally sure a few British officers wouldn't mind re-locating either.

cricketman

I'd rather they give them to families and young people who are in need of decent housing

The problem is you would be talking about the state seizing private assets. Unless the state was able to buy then at a hugely subsidised rate from the banks