Press releases and news

As we have been saying all along, the fall in top level house prices is smaller than that for more standard housing.

In the segment of houses situated in the best residential zones, the reduction rarely reaches 25% in comparison with 2007-8 prices, considering too that the average drop is only slightly higher than 20%. For example, if the price of a house falls from four million to three million euros, this is already a considerable fall in absolute figures.

At the start of 2009, only very few selling homeowners had adjusted their prices to the market. Now, almost 50% of the houses on the market in this segment have had to change their asking prices. But many still remain reluctant to lower prices because they can afford to hold on longer.

When homeowners adjust their prices, the houses sell. Those who wait a long time to lower their prices will have a worse chance as more time passes by.

There is a limit in the price to which high-end houses have fallen, and probably will fall in the future. If a house has already fallen in price, now is the time to buy. It is not worth waiting around for 6 months, thinking that it will stay on the market and get cheaper.

The bargains, or spectacular price falls, always occur as a result of the precise needs of individual homeowners. When the economy starts to improve, houses will start to go up in price again, financing will improve bit by bit, the need for investment will return and then many people will regret not having bought earlier.

What is most important is recognising that houses are already at the right prices. We would be delighted to advise you and point you towards the best offers.

Have we reached the floor in the fall in house prices in the luxury sector? The answer is: to a price reduction of 25% on previous years, we are carrying out operations in our four offices in La Moraleja, Conde de Orgaz, Mirasierra and Valdemarín. What is for certain is that the first to reduce their selling prices are those that are beginning to sell. However, there are many owners that are reluctant to change the price of their houses in this situation, as though they weren’t really for sale and they were just testing their viability.
The capital for buyers and investors is in waiting. There is money ready for the hunt for the best opportunity. There are those who still prefer to invest (wisely so) in luxury properties instead of on the Stock Market, which is so unreliable and subject to volatility.
There are many houses that are yet to lower their prices. More than a floor, we should talk about a wall, a mobile wall that moves and behind which houses can adjust their prices to a level at which investors, lying in wait, decide to buy.
It seemed that good houses that have already lowered their prices by 25% will not do so any further, but it is certain that many more houses will have to go down to this level, if they want to sell. The duration and intensity of the crisis depends on the need for further downward revisions of price and this at the moment, no-one is sure of.

In this new edition of our Property magazine we include the updated prices for those properties that have adjusted their prices to become more attractive in the current market. In this economic setting, in which the real demand for our sector of the market exists, it is a shame that financial organisations do not always make available the assets to support a mortgage with credit in totally solvent purchase operations that present themselves.

However, the fall in the real estate market prices in general is slowed in our sector by the exclusivity and for the unquestionable quality and privileged location that our properties offer.

Therefore, we are in a deadlock that we cannot say hot long it will last. It is enough to say that the prices don’t fall here as much as in the rest of the market and the buyers offer the vendors prices that they reject. Those who are able to put an end to the crisis are not prepared to drop the price of magnificent properties, they accept offers that are reasonable to their worth. Therefore we are only able to wait and see. Patience, that time will put things back to their happy medium.

At the exit of the Suanzes metro station, on calle Alcalá, Madrid has managed to keep almost intact one of the city’s largest green spaces; the Quinta de los Molinos park. Behind a wall of nearly 100 metres, on the stretch of Calle Alcalá that unites Calle Iquitos with the Avenida del 25 de Septiembre, is a space of almost 22 hectares, classed as a place of cultural interest and a historic garden, with 6000 trees and a great many wild shrubs separated by a network of perfectly conserved pathways. The isolation and the sensation of pleasant solitude in this place contrasts with the noise which the pedestrians encounter when leaving the park behind. An area that is too beautiful for real estate interest, in which the spirit of the profitable high-tech impressive office buildings, equipped with the most advanced data entry systems, have been abandoned for the ancient. The Community of Madrid is also going to construct the Quinta de Molinos health centre nearby, with investments of almost 14 million Euros.

In the twenty years since De Salas Real Estate Consultants joined the market we have seen crises and, surely, this one will not be the last in which we wait to see if our clients continue rewarding us with their trust in new times.

In the end, of course, the market will slow down, but in our segment of high standard residential properties we will continue carrying out transactions, although there won’t be as many as in the boom that came with the taking of the euro, in 2002.

Our sincerity and rigour, availability, dedication of time and attention that we lend to our clients, and the legal security with which we operate has generated an effective name that keeps us ready for a fight. We thank all of you, clients and friends, for all of these years. We hope that we will carry on being with you for a long time to come.

According to the Professional Association of Real Estate Experts (APEI), despite the crisis of faith that affects us all, it is a good time to buy properties. They also assure us that those that need to buy a property can be guaranteed that they are going to find what they want. For the president of the APEI, Óscar Martínez Solozábal, it is difficult to guess if prices are going to continue falling, but what is clear is that the buyer has recovered strength and leadership in the buying and sales processes and is now negotiating the price. Thus, the investor that buys in order to lease will have good business from both sides and is assured a profit.

The ninth instalment of the Property Conference, the prelude to SIMA, will start with a session dedicated to analysing the principal conclusions of the Planner-Asprima study of ‘The Spanish property sector: keys for a new balance’, recently presented to the public. In this conference, promoters, analysts and economists will have the opportunity to examine the macroeconomic effects of the adjustments influencing the property sector and will discuss the sectors that will witness economic growth in the coming years. They will respond to topics relevant to the market: Will the residential adjustment absorb the other sectors? How, and to what extent? And many others.

The fourth instalment of Casa Pasarela will take place from the 14th to the 17th of February in Ifema, coinciding with the celebration of the Arch.