In the current market asking prices don't mean much. Looking at property in the town where we live (we are toying with the idea of buying) there are a lot of properties listed at prices which would have been optimistic at the peak of the market. I don't know why agents list properties at prices they know are probably double what they are worth at present. There are a few properties which could now be described as a bargain and I guess they will probably sell. I don't know how the house price statistics are compiled but you know what Winston Churchill said about statistics? In case you don't he said - " there are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics".

True. Some have even been known to increase the price every year too We once put in an offer for a house and the spanish woman came back with an increase on the asking price Needless to say it was still on sale for a long time.

It's a similar situation with private sale of cars - you see them advertised for ever -at wildly optimistic prices.

This attitude amazed me when I was looking for somewhere to buy in 2002/2003. We made an offer on a house in late 2002 (not very much below the asking price) which was refused - even though the owners didn't want to move out until the following October, and we would have been prepared to wait. The estate agent tried to get us to pay the asking price and still wait 9 months to complete, saying "but the house will be worth more by then"!!! I said well it might be, and then it might not, but I still don't want it at that price. I looked at his website again in January and the price of the house had been increased by 10%. God loves a trier, as they say.

It's a common occurrence in Spain, though maybe not quite so much during the present recession.

Houses or land can be advertised at the same price for several years without attracting a buyer, then just when you think the price must surely go down,it suddenly jumps up instead.

I guess they must like to keep up with inflation.

Houses sold before the present CRISIS so the system must have worked, at least for the locals.

Well it did. Houses increased in price by 400% between 1995 and 2005 so its no wonder that the attitude was like this

Different ball game now of course

I did always wonder though (cynical, moi?) if the refusal to budge from the asking price would apply if the prospective purchaser was Spanish? Somehow I just can't see there being no negotiation on price between a Spanish vendor and a Spanish buyer.

Why would it make any difference?

Money doesnt talk

Sorry, I don't understand your point. What I am saying is that yes, houses will always have been bought and sold in Spain, but I am sceptical that Spanish vendors would have refused to accept offers below the asking price from Spanish buyers - which is the experience that many foreign buyers have had in Spain, especially before the current recession hit. Certainly when we were dealing with viewers on behalf of a friend whose house was for sale, almost the first question any prospective Spanish buyers (just like those of any other nationality!) asked was "the price is xxxxxx? How much would you be prepared to accept?". And yet when I was buying (from Spanish vendors), twice I made offers within 5% of the asking price, which were both refused.

At that time the market was buoyant, and prices going up all the time, so I'm not surprised that they wanted more a year later.

They may well have wanted more, but did they get it, that is the question? That house stayed on the market for ages, I think it was eventually sold but since that time has been occupied by a succession of Morroccan families, with rooms partitioned up and part of the roof terrace converted into extra rooms. I can't imagine they paid top price for it, so I think it highly likely that the owners lost out in the end by not accepting a reasonable offer. Not my problem, of course, I just walked away and bought another house at a price I was prepared to pay. The agent was incredulous that although I liked the house, I was prepared to say no thank you.

Almost certainly. Some of the Spanish around here are convinced that Brits will pay more for a house because the Pound is worth more than the Euro.

We all know that housing markets are in the doldrums, and not only in Spain. Yet, from what I've seen of Spanish sellers, of just about anything and not only houses, they tend to fix a price and stick with it.

I know of several Spanish houses nearby which have been up for sale for many years and the prices haven't been reduced. It may have something to do with inheritance laws (practices) because some of the owners have since died and the houses are still for sale at the previous prices. The inheritors take it in turns to attend and keep the gardens and outside tidy.

It even filters through to houses repossessed by the banks, they fix a price relative to the outstanding mortgage, and stick with it even though it's wildly out of date.

No, according to my BF's father this was always the case, regardless of who the buyer is.