The Market and The Weather Are Hot Hot Hot

Graham

Summer has arrived in Valencia with the accompanying heat both of the weather and the property market. The hot weather, well, the truth is we expect it in Spain but maybe not when it’s this hot. Equally, the market we often describe as hot in the summer but maybe not this hot. Even though banks are starting to raise interest rates bit by bit to try and make more money from the current situation in the market, they have just announced record quarterly profits too, buyers are still buying and many are still quite happy to apply for a mortgage even though interest rates are 1% higher than a month or so ago. So in this post we are going to look at the heat of the market and the weather and how to keep cool in both of them.

Firstly, the Weather

Unlike certain nutters in the UK, when it gets hot here we admit it and always say “it never used to be like this“. And it’s true, for years the highest ever temperature recorded in Valencia was 36.8ºC (98ºF in the old money) In 2010 temperatures in the city hit 43.6ºC and that was almost equalled in May 2015. The old record of 36.8ºC is now regularly beaten and even today temperatures in my town touched 40ºC easily beating that record. (And by the way, over 300 people died last week due to the heat in Spain. Extremadura touched 47 degrees which is just ridiculous)

When the heat comes people find the shade, the air conditioned malls and living rooms, the local swimming pools and the breeze on the beach. We keep hydrated and hardly ever sunbathe because that’s the way to get seriously burned. Here are just a few tips to avoid the worst heat of the day.

  • Use ceiling fans and standing fans to keep air moving.
  • Keep very hydrated.
  • Have a siesta during the hottest hours of the day.
  • Keep blinds and shutters that face the sun closed.
  • If you can, then get a through breeze by opening windows at front and back of house.
  • Start early in the day if you want to get things done.
  • Granizados (Slushies: Coffee, Lemon or Horchata).
  • Walk on the shady side of the street as it makes a huge difference.
  • Eat late. The heat is one of the reasons why Valencians eat so late, you can eat outside in the cooler evening weather. And then you can go out for a drink after and stay on the streets with the rest of the Valencians until the early hours.

You can also plan for future heatwaves, which we will have of course, by preparing your property.

  • Solar panels so you can have more air conditioning and also give better insualtion from direct sunlight on your roof. (Most local councils and regional governments also help with the costs of these installations with grants)
  • White walls, especially southern facing walls to reflect the sunlight.
  • We have even seen a white painted roof recently to reflect that heat.
  • Insulation in the roof areas which is very uncommon in Spain.
  • Reflective shades and awnings to shade windows.

And of course many of these measures help when the “winter” or cooler months come along as insulation also stops heat escaping in the winter and your solar panels will bring down your energy costs for heating.

The Hot Property Market

We have been saying this for a long time now and continue to do so, I wrote about how the Valencia Property market had gone mad here and I wrote here about the first quarter of 2022 Valencia property market report. We continue to see a ramping up of that situation. As we speak at the moment we have now sold more properties than in any other year and we are only in July. Now the truth is that the second part of the year won’t be as successful probably because the funnel is slowed down by August essentially being a dead month. However we expect to set new records for sales month on month as we already have people booked in for the rest of the year. Once Autumn gets here and with the current situations in the USA and the UK as we explained in this post a couple of weeks ago we expect even more people to be booking in.

What’s Selling and Who To?

Valencia City and L’Eliana and hot markets at the moment. All agents in these areas have really low stock and we have been very successfully guiding our clients through what’s available and still managing to find their perfect or very nearly perfect property. The Spanish buyer’s market itself is still strong and banks are still giving mortgages to those clients as the Spanish generally buy with a mortgage.

Foreign buyers are also successfully buying, mostly after selling a property in their own country and therefore not requiring mortgages. However, our experiences of the banks recently have been less than ideal for those getting mortgages. Banks are taking a lot longer to approve and prepare them and in a couple of cases this has meant extensions of contracts being required in order to successfully complete a purchase. This is because the banks are taking longer to upload the required paperwork to the notary’s offices for signing before the purchase can be completed. A ten day cooling off period is required and banks are really pushing the time periods for making a mortgage offer and having it accepted due to high demand for mortgages and lack of supply of workers in the banks to prepare the paperwork (Covid gets everywhere of course)

Therefore we are suggesting extending contracts for purchase when a mortgage is required from a standard 60 days to a more likely 90 days. However we still let the owners know that if everything is prepared quicker then we can bring forward the signing date to be within that 60 days. The sale of the house below for example we had to extend the contract by a few days due to the vissicitudes and repeated spelling mistakes (Yes, you read that right) of Targobank.

Within Valencia City

The popular price range at the moment is somewhere between 350-380k it seems. We have had so many clients looking around that price range recently and virtually all of them are buying a place to reform. These places are around 140-170m2 meaning that the reform cost will be somewhere between 70-90k on top of the purchase price. However, for some of these clients the eventual aim is to get the Golden Visa and the reform costs cannot be included in the 500k amount required for it. Therefore, they are looking for other properties to complement their first purchase to then rent out. Lots of searching around the 130-150k range for these clients and already we have found places for a couple of them which you may see in our rental options soon.

How To Find Your Perfect Property in a Hot Market

The first thing you must remember in this hot market is to keep cool and have a plan. The first step is always to fill the form on this post in to let us know your requirements (You can also click on the image below). This will concentrate your mind on what you actually want so that we can start putting together a list of your ideal properties for when you visit. You should make sure to let us know when you are arriving so we can put you in the diary and make sure you have as much time as possible to view the properties you need to see. The cleaerer your requirements are the better chance you will have of finding that perfect property and as we have said before there will never be an infinite choice. If you are clear on what you want then you should only ever have a few prime candidate places to see.

How Not To Find Your Perfect Property

We have had people here on holiday this week saying “We want to go and see these properties this afternoon or maybe tomorrow at lunchtime“. It’s not happening. We are mostly fully booked with people who are ready to go with NIE, Bank account and funds in place and they will always be a priority over somebody who, perhaps, fancies a day away from the beach, whatever their budget. We don’t let people down who have worked with us well in advance to see to drop-ins unfortunately as we don’t have the bandwidth to do that.

We also received a funny mail this weekend asking us to suggest places for them to see and if an owner would be interested in doing a house swap with a place in Murcia. That wasn’t the funny bit, although finding someone to do a house swap Valencia/Murcia would be quite funny. The request in the same mail to “Please don’t bug me with loads of phone calls” raised a smile as if there’s one thing we can never be accused of it’s making an unnecessary phone call. Half of our staff are mortified if they ever have to speak to anyone directly on the phone. Messaging, mails and face to face interactions are our way of working. It’s much easier to keep track of where we are in the process that way.

And speaking of other ways of making sure you cannot find what you want. Walking into an estate agent’s office and asking to see properties generally doesn’t work as they will take you to see what they have keys for at that moment, not the one you wanted to see in their window.

Not doing any preparation before you come over also is a surefire way of not finding anything. We had a Romanian client contact us this week on thr ground in Valencia to see three properties the next day and they would likely buy all three according to their mail. However, when asked about their NIE, bank account and other preparations they didn’t even know you needed them and they were shocked to discover that you have to pay tax on any purchase too. Next!

And finally, stating in your email that everything is overpriced so you will be making offers of at least 30% below asking price in a hot market is a sure way to get a mail from us in reply wishing you good luck in your search but you won’t be seeing anything with us. Yes the client pays us as we are buyers’ agents. But the client has to be realistic and know what works and what doesn’t work in the market.

Property of the Week

Waking up every morning to a gorgeous view from the end of your bed is something that not everyone can aspire to. Oftentimes we have a view of just a wall, a window leading to nowhere or worse an old 16 inch TV hung precariously on the wall from back in the days when our eyes could make out what was happening on such a small screen. In this house you get orange groves, an excellent terrace overlooking your own pool and distant mountains, check out the photos.

What you also get though is a well maintained large villa on a good sized and well organised plot of 949m2 with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, lovely rustic style kitchen with large larder, huge living room and plenty of terraces to enjoy those views.

You have gardens, a secluded pool area, off road parking and garage and plenty of storage space too.

Set in a quiet road on the Calicanto urbanisation you are just twenty minutes from Valencia and the airport and near to plenty of big towns for all of your shopping needs. You will need a car here as you aren’t walking distance to the shops but plenty of scope for your electric car charger as petrol becomes more expensive as loads of Valencian sun to charge it.

Last Chance Saloon For Our Quiz.

We have had quite a few all correct answers to our quiz this time and remember you can still win a prize even if you don’t get all the answers right, so enter by filling in as many of the answers below as you can. And thanks to all of you who have pointed out that question three has the wrong Podcast episode mentioned. I won’t help others though who haven’t discovered this and I’ll let them find out which Podcast episode it was mentioned in!

In which property description do we write about the British TV Sitcom "The Good Life" (URL Required)
How many problems has the Uk got at the moment post Brexit according to the Charge Sheet we presented in a blog post in June 2022? (URL and answer required) .
In the Podcast "God Bless America" who described their process of buying and renovating a property in Valencia. (Name only required)
Which blog post from 2022 introduced you to the concept of the Reference Value when paying Spanish Property Taxes? (URL Required)
Where do we talk about "Elton John" and "a Sad Sad Situation" in a blog post? (URL Required)
In which property description do we get all sarcastic about all things to do with golf? CLUE: Marina Hyde and the Guardian get mentions (URL Required)
Which of our podcasts has the most downloads on Podbean? (URL Required)
Which villa with more bathrooms than bedrooms will soon be frontline seafront perhaps? (URL Required)
What was the average sale price in 2021 for Valencia Property clients? (URL and Amount required)
Apart from photoshop how many other deadly sins did we list in our blog post late last year? (URL and Number required)
In which blog post did we talk about the Maxi Almuerzo? (URL Required)
We got creative with abbreviations in a townhouse once. Which house was it though or have you forgot? (URL Required)
In the Podcast "The Story of Valencia Property" we talk about how we describe properties and why we try to keep our descriptions entertaining. Which song did David use for his favourite description? (Song title required and the conversation starts about 13.30 minutes in)
Which Inland Town from Valencia got the highest marks on our post about the best places to live inland? (Name required)
How many articles are on our essential reading page? (Number required)
  1. To participate, complete an entry form with your name, mail and phone number, and submit it online.
  2. The contest will be conducted from July 4th to July 25th, 2022. Deadline for entries is July 25th, 2022. Grand prize drawing will be held before the end of July.
  3. You must be 21 years of age or older to win. No purchase necessary. One qualifier per household. You need not be present to win.
  4. Approximate value of the prize is €300.

If You Liked This…

Then it would be useful to read some more about the Valencia Property market and many other themes. Take a look by clicking on the images below.