Don't disillusion the man, he's thinks knowledge is exclusive to him. (seem to remember a PM I received about him! ) I bet Plumberman's post was about as interesting as well.

Agrodiarrhea, why don`t you admit you have read it anyway.
Jesus, you can you post without a Google.

I agree.
Only to add my own usual two penneth.
When I have to start eating old tyres and sell my older children to feed the younger etc etc am I going to worry.

So if for instance you yourself have sold a property in Spain, another regular poster here and elsewhere has sold and moved this week, other members on another forum that you are on first name terms with say they have sold not 1 but 2 of their properties in recent months are we to believe that you say that the Spanish market is dead because quite clearly it is not.

The ugly stench of schadenfreude emanates from every single one of your and Aggro Orios posts .............. so last century dont you think?

OK - interesting thread, but please let's not get personal!

I don't claim to understand their reasoning (and I suspect they have some knowledge we don't) but a German property group are predicting a fast recovery in the Spanish real estate market. I wonder if they're talking about the major cities, and not the costas, but it makes you wonder

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...d_dest=Twitter

to be honest, I don't believe it, but it wouldn't be the first time I'm proven wrong regarding property prices

You got a thesaurus for Christmas didn't you?

I must admit I would be surprised if the Spanish property market improved at this stage, but a local estate agent, one brave enough to expand in the market a year ago when his competitors were fleeing the country, is doing extremely well at the moment. He has taken on extra staff and either he or one of the staff is at the notary’s on a daily basis.

I’ve also noticed that the estate agents who have advertised in the local newspapers over the past year with many properties advertised as ‘reduced’ have now stopped this practice.

The paucity of such a small sample is obvious, but I can see a reduction in the Schadenfreude of the usual distracters, those who revel in any bad news about this lovely country they don’t know as well as those of us who live in it.

I have owned property in Spain since the 80's isn't that good enough Typical no-one knows anything unless singing from the same hymn sheet!

I sold a property but counted it on par as being lucky enough to win the lottery I know lots of people who are trying to sell and some have been waiting for years. Look at any property site and it seems as if every tiny village has nearly every property on sale on the CDS.

Time will tell anyway, I remember the forums being full of postings that it was picking up at the start of last year and the agents were busy....didn't happen did it!

Bet if people were honest there are quite a few members on here trying to sell.

I have owned a property in Spain since the late eighties as well, starting on the CDS, but I’m now on the Costa Blanca. I believe that the CDS is a difficult place because of exceptional corruption in that part of the world, which has contaminated people’s perception of it, which will take years to rectify itself.

I’m sorry but the CDS around Marbella is not representative of the rest of Spain.

It's not a question in reveling in anything, it's a question of being realistic. When I head from Málaga airport and see many hundreds of abandoned building sites, the area is covered in them, it's hard to be upbeat. When I watch the Spanish news and see thousands of new unsold, unlived in properties outside Madrid, again hard to think in positive terms. No different to Ireland, they have the same problem, loads of abandoned building sites. According to which figures you read, there are "millions" of new properties patiently awaiting a buyer, when I read Spanish forums of more and more youngsters moving back in with Mum and Dad because they cannot hope to get a mortgage, I can't share your optimism. True, they might be starting to sell a few more, and that's to be welcomed, however it will need sales of gigantic proportions to make any impression on the stock of unsold properties. You obviously have more intimate knowledge of your area, and you're welcome to it, but you have no more idea what is happening in the rest of Spain than I do. For that info, you have to rely on hearsay, the Spanish press, TV, radio etc, and guess what, that's all available to anyone anywhere in the world. Just need to know the lingo.

Well, I can see people´s views on the Spanish housing market have changed a lot. Five years ago, when I posted the original thread, there were lots of people who thought I was crazy. Now, most of you seem to thing the housing market in my country is dead, and will be dead for a very long time to come.

Well, you are right.

That's kind of true

There are no good signs in the Spanish property market at the moment, sales numbers are lower than any time in the past 15 years and the increase in property sales tax hasnt helped that.

Any estate agents who say otherwise are probably lying. I dont blame them, they have to lie or noone would ever buy a house from them.

While it is true that, individually, we can only talk about the small area that we live in and have lived in for a while, most of us also watch the news, including the Spanish news of the country we live in. We also talk to friends and neighbours and even in an area with many expats there will still be a majority of Spanish people, at least that is the case where I live.

When I walked my dog early this morning I saw three other dog walkers, all Spanish, a Spanish mechanic has just called round to fix my expensive car (it was expensive when it was built 20 years ago) but he’s had to go out to buy some kind of superglue to fix the handbrake release.

We’re on our way out to go to the Spanish cash point shortly and will undoubtedly speak to several Spanish people when we visit the nearby Spanish bar. The two phone calls this morning were from Spanish people.

Along with reading several daily papers (online mostly) it gives me a rough idea of how things are in Spain. The main problems appear to be the collapse of the construction industry and high youth unemployment. Those things will be remedied and I don’t think it will take as long as the pessimists predict.

It’s hard to be miserable when the sun is shining.

It doesn't matter if you are happy where you are and not wanting to sell. However, no-one knows what is around the corner and when living in a country not your birth country many need to go back. Many need to go back for various reasons, death of a partner, health etc. or sheer poverty. I know someone whose wife has alzheimers, was so bad with wandering off and sometimes getting violent that they locked up and left as unable to sell. It is not nice to feel "trapped".

The fortunate ones are those who rent, something I never thought I would say. Wherever I was thinking of moving to in the world I would never buy a property in another country, just keep a UK one.