Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 18th September 2008
Spanish property market: Top 20 overseas buying destinations
It’s difficult to find much good news about Spain at the moment. The Spanish Ministry of Housing reports transaction volumes are
down 32% year-on-year and the economic pain looks set to get worse before it gets better. However, data taken from the new
Globaledge Search Index suggests there is still significant demand for property in Spain from overseas buyers. Furthermore, the data suggests there are some relatively untapped opportunities for agents who can offer property in the right areas.
Using the
Google Keyword Tool, we collected data from over 13,000 unique Spanish property search phrases. We then aggregated the data by location to create a list of the most popular overseas property buying destinations in Spain.
Tenerife on top
There were 53,805 property-related searches for
Tenerife in July 2008, accounting for a remarkable 15.3% of searches within the top 20. Interestingly the island is more than twice as popular as the
Costa Blanca and more than three times more popular than
Costa del Sol. The Tenerife resort, Los Cristianos also made the list, in 13th place with 4,112 searches.
The islands beat the costas
Next in the table is another island,
Mallorca with 24,215 searches or 6.9% of the total. Although we have no time series data, so we cannot know for sure, it seems likely Tenerife and Mallorca have come from behind to overtake Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol as the preferred buying destinations for overseas property buyers considering Spain. This could be a long term effect of poor planning regulations and over-supply pushing buyers to more picturesque destinations.
Under-supply on the islands?
Interestingly, many of the island locations have relatively few advertisers on Google Adwords. It suggests there is either an under-supply of agents and property serving these markets or that agents in these areas are not high users of Google Adwords. If it’s the former, it could represent a good opportunity for overseas agents willing to spend the time forging collaborative partnerships with local agents and developers in these areas.
Either way, click prices (and therefore leads) will be relatively cheap for agents selling property on the islands. For example, when we checked the phrase [property in Los Cristianos] and there were only three advertisers with minimum bid prices at around 10p per click. To help illustrate the differences in supply and demand we have added a maximum bid price* to each location in the top 20 list.
Top 20 Overseas Property Search Locations for Spain
Position
|
Location
|
July Search Volume
|
%age of Top 20 Volume
|
Google Adwords Max CPC Price
|
1
|
Spain
|
159,585
|
45.4%
|
$5.08
|
2
|
Tenerife
|
53,805
|
15.3%
|
$1.60
|
3
|
Mallorca
|
24,215
|
6.9%
|
$1.94
|
4
|
Costa Blanca
|
22,106
|
6.3%
|
$3.04
|
5
|
Costa del Sol
|
15,987
|
4.5%
|
$4.27
|
6
|
Valencia
|
10,522
|
3.0%
|
$2.61
|
7
|
Almeria
|
7,193
|
2.0%
|
$4.64
|
8
|
Costa Calida
|
6,233
|
1.8%
|
$5.49
|
9
|
Andalucia
|
6,015
|
1.7%
|
$3.70
|
10
|
Murcia
|
5,959
|
1.7%
|
$6.12
|
11
|
Marbella
|
5,475
|
1.6%
|
$4.46
|
12
|
Ibiza
|
4,810
|
1.4%
|
$1.14
|
13
|
Los Cristianos
|
4,112
|
1.2%
|
$0.99
|
14
|
Alicante
|
4,060
|
1.2%
|
$3.55
|
15
|
Lanzarote
|
4,050
|
1.2%
|
$1.41
|
16
|
Javea
|
3,450
|
1.0%
|
$1.92
|
17
|
Costa Brava
|
3,202
|
0.9%
|
$2.86
|
18
|
Granada
|
3,151
|
0.9%
|
$1.92
|
19
|
Menorca
|
2,852
|
0.8%
|
$1.82
|
20
|
Moraira
|
2,474
|
0.7%
|
$5.72
|
Note on Methodology
For full methodology on our analysis of search volumes see
Globaledge Search Index.
*The Google Adwords Max CPC price was calculated by entering “<location> <property>” in the
Google Traffic Estimator tool and taking the higher average CPC figure for each location.
User Comments
We have found there are still large volumes of searches, but the real leads are coming for the higher priced properties.
Rob Wood,
Encasa Software
It is not just searches. According to all the stats (official and independent), property prices here seem to be holding steadier. El Pais newspaper recently reported that we have sold a greater proportion of our new developments than anywhere else in Spain - so we have no 'glut' to clear. Despite all this, Tenerife property prices remain below Spanish averages.
Our partner agents in UK, Ireland and Europe report sustained interest as well, and we are currently forging links with many new partners on the strength of this.
Of course we are an autonomous community over a thousand miles from the mainland, so it is not surprising that our market is very different. For us, the busy period is the winter, so we expect demand to rise further still. Fingers crossed!
Leslie Beeson,
Tenerife Property Shop