Foreigners from outside of the EU, who invest a minimum of €500.000,- in Spanish real estate, can get residency.

Encouraged by very promissing results from a similar program in Portugal, the Spanish government recently enacted legislation that grants residency to overseas nationals who invest a minimum of €500.000,- in any kind of real estate.

Many regions in Spain suffer from oversupply, particularly in the residential market. Many seemingly good opportunities are poorly located though and lack vital services or form part of largely empty developments.
The best value on offer is in the mid- to high-end, and also in the centre of Madrid and Barcelona.

Also longterm investors are starting to pick up disstressed offers of building plots in famous areas as Marbella.

Lastly commercial property offers some interesting opportunities. Prime yields are double or triple those in Hong Kong and capital values are less than half what they were five years ago.

Nationals from Hong Kong and the mainland have picked up on that too and this has led to a surge in interest from their part. We are already beginning to see small groups of such investors arriving, chequebooks in hand.

Intrest will almost certainly grow even more rapidly when banks are being forced to clean up their balance sheets and start putting more and more real estate on the market. Prices could become even more attractive.

Residency in one of Europe most beautiful countries will then be an offer few wealthy foreigners can resist.

(Google auteur)