Ibiza Property

Although the Spanish economy is still in trouble and all across the nation house prices have dropped by as much as 40% from their debt-bubble fuelled heights, the Ibiza Property market is slightly different from rest of the nation, and the mainland especially.

Unlike the mainland where property prices are heavily down across the board, in general Ibiza real estate is still less affected by the ongoing crisis because of the lack of supply of mid range and high end properties.

It is true that lower-end apartments which are in more plentiful supply have seen prices reduced from the pre-crisis levels by up to 30-40%, but the quintessential seaview Ibiza villas and "casas de campo" (country houses) which so many people who dream of moving to and living in Ibiza aspire to are not in plentiful supply at all, mainly because of the strict and seemingly impossible building regulations restricting the building of new properties.

It is also the case that many of these owners do not "need to sell" and simply have their houses on the market at inflated prices to "see what happens" - these owners are often content to leave the house on the market for several years until "the right buyer" appears, and with no need for the money, are able to maintain the general price levels of this type of property higher, in estate agent windows at least.

A friend of mine who has been an Ibiza property agent for one of the larger Inmobiliaria in Ibiza for the last ten years said a couple of days ago:

"The buyers are out there, but everybody all have the same ideas and want the same thing, and we just dont have the product. I could sell as many 1-2million Euro minimalistic villas with pool and seaview as I can find but unfortunately there really are not as many good ones as you think..

..there are plenty of "bargain hunters" out there too, every 3rd email we get is from people looking for authentic country properties that are a little run down and in need of fixing up, going cheap.. Of course, we don't have that many of these and 20 buyers at least for every one we can find.

Ibiza's more desirable properties have thus far escaped severe price reduction, but with the worst of the sovereign debt crisis still ahead of us, and a huge glut of unsold property in Spain, plus all the inevitable repossessions still to come, Spanish property prices in general are not out of the woods yet, and it is my own personal feeling that as Ibiza's higher end housing has thus far escaped the worst of it anyway, that reality must come home to roost at some point.

I am of the opinion that by 2013 by the time the global economic problems have either played out, or will be at their peak, that Ibiza will see cross the board reductions of 20-30% from current levels.

Until then I am renting, in a brand new luxury 4 bedroom apartment for 1000Euros per month, that is currently valued at 450k Euros (37.5 x annual rent!!) - historically in pre-speculative debt-bubble times this figure should be more like 12-15 times annual rent, so I think we have a way to go yet) but am saving hard and buying gold or silver until the Gold price catches up with modern economic reality (going way up) and Ibiza property prices catch up with reality (way down)until property investment makes sense again, in ibiza, anyway.

At some point I think they will meet in the middle and it will be time to swap the metals for that dream property .