Spain's great all-round summer

Spain is having a great summer and the place is on the up in the property, vacation, financial and weather sectors, all of which impact on property purchase.

After three years of construction lay-offs and cut-backs in housing production – down from 600,000 a year to 400,000 – annual output was up 18.6%, the highest in the Eurozone. This should mean more choice in two years and give time for the current crop of Spanish bank repossessions to be sold off at discounts of up to 53% and average price cut of 34%, compared with peak year 2007.

After a slow start to the holiday season, 22 million passengers arrived in Spain last month, a 3.7% increase over the same period last year. They timed it right as it was the third hottest August in Spain so far this century. The hottest days were in Valencia, Alicante and Murcia, where temperatures reached 44 degrees. (That’s 111F).

Murcia, which offers the best winter climate in Europe, is to be the location for a new theme park announced by Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures. The project is expected to create 20,000 jobs and attract 3 million visitors per year to the Murcia region and boost the fortunes of Polaris World and home buyers at their seven golf resorts encircling the new home of Shrek, Lara Croft, Ethan Hunt and other stars of the silver screen.

Having a house, close to Disney theme parks, has proved to be a good choice as it can produce year-round rental cash. So well done Polaris World buyers and by the way there are bargain penthouses still available within 10 minutes drive of the Paramount front gates for other canny investors...

Such a big name theme park in the region will attract further projects and is expected to make Murcia one of the European hot spots for second homes in the years ahead. Murcia is just a two hour flight from the UK and offers the best winter climate in Europe.

A new international airport is set to open in 2011 at Corvera within 20 minutes of all the Polaris World resorts and close to the proposed site for the Paramount theme park.

During the second quarter of this year, sales of residential property in Spain rose by 24% compared with 2009. Almost 150,000 properties were sold in this period, the third consecutive quarter to show an increase. In Málaga province, the increase was 26.2%. Now is the time to buy before the best of the Spanish bank repossessions and key ready bargains from less troubled developers run out.