Poor old Michelle Obama got so much stick for coming to Marbella she probably wont come again but at least she has put Marbella property on the map,

Michelle Obama - Marbella loves you

‘It’s the extravagance of Michelle Obama’s trip and glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama’s demonisation of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy and perpetuates a disconnect between the country and its leaders.

‘Toning down the flash would humanise the Obamas and signify that they sympathise with the setbacks of the people they were elected to serve.’

Few details of the Spain expenditure are known. Purely personal parts will be paid for by Obama and friends.

 More…Me and my heavies: Michelle Obama goes walkabout in Marbella after ‘racist’ Spaniards gaff

Official portions of the trip will be picked up by the taxpayer, including transport on the Air Force version of a 757, which would cost around $146,000 (£91,900) for the round trip (not including four to five days’ ground time), and her mandatory Secret Service detail.At an estimated 70 agents – at the $273-a-day federal per diem for five days, that’s just over £60,000 for Secret Service room and board. That’s a grand total of £150,000 – and that’s just for starters.

 A bevy of bodyguards surrounds the U.S. First Lady and youngest daughter as they take a stroll on the Costa del Sol

 Michelle Obama is all smiles as she walks past typical tourist attractions in southern Spain

Today Mrs Obama was seen strolling around the shops of Marbella’s old town, accompanied by burly Secret Service agents as hundreds of locals sought to catch a glimpse of her in the Costa del Sol resort.

Wearing black trousers, a black and white top and dark sunglasses, the 46-year-old walked through Marbella’s cobbled streets, nipping into a number of shops before having dinner in an Andalusian restaurant.

Mrs Obama arrived by plane at Malaga airport yesterday morning and was driven in a 14-car convoy to her hotel She told owner Ricardo Arranz she had come to ‘relax and unwind’.

The hotel is nestled in the hills overlooking Marbella, and at 6.30pm she and nine-year-old Sasha were driven to the historic centre for their shopping trip.

The holiday came just as the Obama administration faced an embarrassing diplomatic blunder and was forced to pull a warning about racism in Spain.

Staff at the US State Department removed the contentious advice to travellers, which included the phrase ‘racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain,’ from its website on Monday.

Locals and British expats and holidaymakers crammed the streets or leaned out from balconies to get th

 New York Daily News columnist Andrea Tantaros accused Michelle Obama of extravagance

They had a reservation for 14 people at the Buenaventura Plaza restaurant, reportedly eating lobster with rice and oysters followed by a Spanish bread pudding called torrijas.

The party enjoyed red wine with the main course and a local sweet white wine with dessert before retiring to the hotel at 10pm.

Today Mrs Obama and her youngest daughter were due to visit the city of Granada, taking in the spectacular Alhambra Palace, the 16th century Granada Cathedral, and the pretty Albaicin neighbourhood, famous for its narrow winding streets and small squares.

After four days on the Costa del Sol they are expected to visit King Juan Charles and Queen Sofia at their summer palace on the island of Majorca.

Around 250 Spanish police officers and military personnel are protecting the Obamas during the trip, with another 68 Secret Service agents over from the US.

President Barack Obama, who turned 49 on Wednesday, is not expected to join them in Spain, and oldest daughter Malia, 12, is at a summer camp in the US.

Mr Obama celebrated his birthday with friends in his Chicago hometown, including TV host Oprah Winfrey, shortly after receiving well-wishing phonecalls from his wife and daughters.

As the presidential motorcade pulled closer to his house in Hyde Park, neighbours lined the street to welcome him home with waves and signs, including ‘Happy 49th Birthday President Barack Obama’ and ‘Happy Birthday Mr President.’

As well as Oprah, Mr Obama was joined by longtime friends Eric Whitaker, Marty Nesbitt and Valerie Jarrett, also a senior White House adviser and fellow Chicagoan.

 Mr Obama’s birthday – though a year short of the milestone 5-0 – also was viewed in this election year as a prime fundraising opportunity for Democrats, who fear losing their hold on both houses of Congress come November.

E-mails, house parties and other forms of outreach sought to capitalise on Obama’s big day.

Mrs Obama even joined the act, asking supporters to sign an e-mail birthday card being distributed by Organising for America, Obama’s political organisation. More than 1.2 million people had signed it as of Wednesday morning.

All in all it’s  sad day when the first lady cant come to Marbella and enjoy herself and least she put property Costa del Sol on the map.

“I want to learn Spanish” I hear you say and why not it’s a wonderful language spoken and wonderful and friendly people. So what is the best way to learn Spanish and how long will it take me.

I want to Learn Spanish

My own personal experience having done all three of CDs, online courses and actual lessons tends to lead me to recommend an online Spanish course with the option of ordering CDs from the course so you can study if you don’t have an internet connection or you are travelling by train or air and want to continue learning during this time. Also now most new and the better online providers will give you some facility to download to your lap top so you can do exactly that.

As for classes I experienced them and I would say the one good thing to come out of them was that you would meet other people who wanted to learn Spanish as well. However when you learn I a group your normally all working at different paces with the reality being that you can only go as fast as the slowest member. Alternatively as happened in my case the slowest member dropped out because the rest of the course was going too quickly for him. There may be an argument for one on one lessons however the cost of this would be very expensive for your average person. So any person who says to me “I want to Learn Spanish” I always strongly advise against this method.

So the best way you can learn Spanish is by finding the right online course that suits you and your needs. I would also recommend you use a course with accelerated learning techniques and with these course you can be speaking conversational Spanish. So if you were to say to me “I want to learn Spanish” I would recommend the above and you will be surprised how easy it is.

Nikki Beach White Party

Confirmation that Marbella is the best place on the planet came with the news that America’s First Lady and her younger daughter, Sasha, nine, will spend four days in the seaside resort, staying at the five star Villa Padierna based in Los Flamingos Golf Resort. This Hotel was known as the Ritz Carlton until for legal reason they were no longer able to use the name.

Officially President Barack Obama will not be making the trip, nor would the couple’s elder daughter Malia, 12, who is going to an American summer camp. However don’t be surprised if the President shows up here in Marbella even though its been denied by the White House who released an official statement released by the White House read: “The First Lady will travel to Spain next week for a private, mother-daughter trip with longtime family friends. President Obama will not be joining this trip.”

Sources quoted in the Spanish media said the Obama party had booked 30 rooms at the resort, which start at 250 euros for a standard double, rising to between 2,200 and 5000 euros for a private villa within the gardens.

For us living in Marbella we know this Hotel very well but lets face it its not even Marbella, its in bloody Estepona.

Anyway it’s a big PR boost for Marbella and Costa del Sol property

So truth time how many of you have lived in Marbella and you still haven’t made the effort to learn Spanish and with the modern advances of the internet there really isn’t any excuse.

Fiona Gonzales of Teach Yourself Spanish

So for those of you who want to teach yourself Spanish and take the ball by the horns so to speak I came across this fantastic website click Teach Yourself Spanish to see for yourself. Now being a guy its hard not to be impressed with such a stunning lady as Fiona Gonzales and if I was going to get some advice on how to learn Spanish Id defo be getting it from her but that’s all as she is head over heal in love with her fella (lucky guy) so we will have to stick to Spanish.

For those of you who want to give Fiona a swerve but want easy Spanish lessons then get online find that Spanish course and starting mixing with the local Spanish who are wonderful people by the way.

Sir Sean Connery was facing a fresh probe into alleged financial irregularities today after a judge widened his investigation into the former 007.

Connery, 79, and second wife Micheline Roquebrune, 81, are already being investigated over the sale of a seaside Marbella property they owned in the millionaires’ playground of Marbella in southern Spain.

Sean Connery In Marbella Property Probe?

Today it emerged judge Ricardo Puyol also wants to quiz the pair over a separate multi-million pound land sale in Malaga six years ago.

Investigators believe a property firm linked to Connery and his wife may have failed to pay tax on the sale of development rights to land it owned on the outskirts of the city.

Local newspaper Sur  published a report by police and tax authorities alleging that the company omitted to pay £1.4m in corporation tax.

Puyol is said to have ordered a formal request for the former James Bond and his wife to appear before him to give evidence.

The request is expected to be made through a rogatory letter to authorities in the Bahamas where the couple have their official residence.

Sur said Spanish authorities were keen to quiz Connery as soon as possible because the alleged tax irregularities will become spent on July 25.

The Scot does not figure as a director of Montelagares, the Spanish firm reportedly identified in court papers as the company behind the July 2004 land sale linked to Connery.

But a lawyer at the Madrid law firm he has used is named as a former director.

The firm, Diaz-Bastien & Truan, is also under investigation over the sale of Connery’s beachside mansion in Marbella, Casa Malibu, and the subsequent reclassification of the land.

It is thought to have represented the former 007 in the sale of the house.

 Exclusive: Police previously raided a property firm in Marbella, Spain in a probe into the sale of a house in the millionaire’s playground

Police raided their offices in Marbella and Madrid in May in an operation codenamed Goldfinger after the 1964 Bond film, and seized 30,000 documents.

The extension of the Connery probe comes less than a month after the Scot was reportedly ordered to pay £2.75m to a court investigating the sale of Casa Malibu.

Connery, knighted in 2000, and his wife were given 30 days to pay the deposit as a bond against possible future compensation.

Judge Ricardo Puyol is investigating alleged irregularities in the reclassification of the land after the actor sold it for a reported £5.5 million in 1998. In 2004 and 2005 a four-storey block of 72 luxury flats was built on the land, apparently despite a 1986 planning regulation which said only five homes could be constructed on it.

Spain’s Court of Audit is said to have estimated the Spanish taxman was owed £2.25m over the sale of the house. Neither Connery or his wife have been arrested or charged with any offence.

The couple bought Casa Malibu after their wedding in 1975 and lived there until the late 90s.

They entertained stars including Richard Burton, Michael Caine, Omar Sharif and George Best in the magnificent whitewashed villa.

Flats on the site are currently selling for around £2m which is more than a lot of Marbella Villas

Well we would all love to make money in the Spanish property recession here in Costa del Sol. So I am going to tell you some full proof secrets on how to make money with property Costa del Sol

Marbella Villas

PROPERTY COSTA DEL SOL SECRETS

1                    Manage your expectations which are really difficult for people trying to find the impossible. The property market here is in recession but it’s not a 1929 Wall Street crash and whilst you can buy some fantastic deal you can’t buy at 25% of 2007 prices but amazingly some people think you can. So get real with your expectations

2                    Find an agent you can trust and ideally deal with just that agent. Here in Spain all agents work together with other peoples properties as well as there own and if you find a good agent you can trust you can access the whole market through that agent. The benefits to this are obvious in that you wont have another agent trying to rubbish another agents property and if the agent sees some loyalty from the buyers they are much more likely to pull out all the stops to make a deal happen on the clients terms even if that it taking less commission.

3                    Know your Locations. In property Costa del Sol different locations have different prices so one property might be deemed to be better value for money in say Calahonda because the property in Marbella is €100,000 more  but in reality the better value for money and investment could well be the property in Marbella

4                    Price per square meter is a major factor you should consider when buying as to whether it’s a great deal or not. Right now you can buy some brilliant properties at under 2000 Euros per square meter and the reality is you couldn’t build them for that.

So I hope you found these tips really useful and you use them to take advantage of the Costa del Sol property recession.

Viva Espana

Property Costa del Sol in Marbella is extremely quiet at the moment but  who cares we  have our nation playing in a world cup final tomorrow and I will be watching it in the park lane bar in Nueva Andalucia cheering on my adopted country since 2002.

Logic dictates Spain should win in a canter with only Robben having a chance of making the Spanish X1 but as we know logic doesn’t always apply in Football.

However when players such as Fabregas, Navas, Pepe Reina, Silva and Marchena cant get in the team you know Spain have a great side and I can’t wait to watch Xabi and  Xavi hopefully turn on the style.

So as we say here in Spain Viva Espana

Loathe her or love her but Angeles Muñoz is certainly doing her best to promote property Costa del Sol & Marbella and it looks like that all her hard work and obvious self promotion is now paying off  with the news that the new owner of Malaga Football Club, Abdullah ben Nasser Al-Thani, has announced that he will invest a large amount of money in a Marbella project.

Boost for Marbella

Al-Thani said after a meeting with Mayor Angeles Muñoz in Marbella that he is in advanced negotiations in a major project in Marbella, related to the tourism industry. He did not reveal exactly what kind of investment project it was.

Angeles Munoz claimed after the reunion with the Qatari sheik that this was wonderful news for the city of Marbella. She looked very excited about the plans, but could not either identify exactly what they were.

Until further information comes from the mayor or the sheik, one can only speculate what the spectacular plans consist of. All we know for know is that the Qatari will invest money into something related with tourism in Marbella. Sundream Blog is very hopeful it will create much needed employment for the citizens of Marbella.

This is great news for Marbella and this blog who has been championing the causes of our wonderful Mayor of Marbella who has been heavily criticized for self promotion and wasting public money. What we pointed out to the idiots who were criticizing her was you only needed one deal like this and you were miles ahead of the game so well done Angeles.

So I thought we would take a break from Marbella Villas and have a look at the unfair criticism our Mayor is currently getting.

The PSOE party of Marbella has revealed the cost the government has spent on the printing of the Mayor’s new “AM” magazine, without counting the cost of distribution.

Marbella

In the following six months, from July to December, 59,900 Euros will be spent on printing the new AM magazine, an amount which breaks down to 9983.33 Euros per month, according to figures released by PSOE’s secretary general Jose Bernal and secretary of communication of PSOE Andalusia, Francisco Conejo. And all this without even taking into account the cost of distribution.

Bernal further claims that the town’s Mayor, Angeles Muñoz, “is not concerned about the crisis, but merely for her image.” In the magazine “where her picture appears least it was counted 27 times.” All this while the city’s debt towards small and medium sized businesses and suppliers amounted to 23 million Euros. So what these Bozo’s who criticise the Mayor fail to grasp whilst she is no doubt into self promotion like all politicians she is also doing her best to continue to promote Marbella and in reality €60,000 against €23 Million is nothing but a drop in the ocean or would these lovely people like Mayor Jesus Gill back?

While most companies and institutions are adjusting their cost of advertising, Angeles Muñoz continues her campaign of waste so her critics would say. Her critics go further saying it’s with the sole purpose of promoting her image. In February this year, Angeles Muñoz together with the Councillor of Tourism, Jose Luis Hernandez visited New York as part of a “promotional” tour to emphasize the economic potential of Marbella. The trip which allegedly cost 21,000 Euros and again her critics say it is yet to show the fruits it has born. Opposition leaders question the effectiveness of the campaign as well as the declared costs.  Well they would wouldn’t they, our Mayor is doing the best to promote Marbella to the world when Marbella needs every penny of investment it can get and her detractors continue to criticise one of the few Mayor’s to stand up for her city with such vigor. Let’s put it another way she only needs to get one Millionaire to move to Marbella and the €100,000 that these idiots are complaining about would more than be made up in extra tax revenues and that’s before they start a business.

So if you don’t support this Mayor please tell me who would do a better job, I for one fully support her.

More than 100,000 high earners will be hit by a 10 per cent rise in capital gains tax. But will it have any impact on those looking to buy Marbella villas for sale?

But after a vigorous campaign by Tory Right-wingers, George Osborne watered down demands by the LibDems to hike the headline rate to match the 40 and 50 per cent rates of income tax.

Instead, he raised CGT from 18 per cent to 28 per cent from midnight for those with second homes and shares who pay the higher rate.

In a signal that he had listened to critics who told him he would end up losing money if he sent the rate soaring, however, he made clear that the Treasury would have lost money had he put the rate even a single point higher.

In another concession, officials said the increase will be reviewed after one year to make sure that it is actually raising money. That opens the door to a rate cut next year.

Basic rate taxpayers who have second homes or share portfolios will see no change in their CGT rate when they dispose of assets. For them, it remains at 18 per cent. 

The change in CGT is expected to raise £725million this year, but official documents show that only £125million of the gain comes from direct capital gains tax revenues. The other £600million is the result of increasing income tax revenues as fewer people dodge that tax by taking their income as capital gains.

Despite the Chancellor’s compromise, critics said the tax rise could lead to homeowners ‘flipping’ their homes in the same way as MPs did when fiddling their expenses. Property owners pay CGT only on their second homes, so if they switch homes before selling they could avoid the punishing payments.

David Kilshaw, of KPMG, said: ‘The desire to maximize the main residence reliefs will inevitably increase. There is a danger that “flipping” will be the game in town and the countryside.’

The Budget also kept the threshold at which the tax kicks in at £10,100 this year, and will rise in line with inflation in future years.

The Chancellor also offered an olive branch to business, extending the CGT exemptions for entrepreneurs. Businessmen who own 5 per cent or more of their company were allowed to dodge CGT on the first £2million they earned in their careers.

They will now be entitled to £5million of tax-free gains.

Former Cabinet ministers John Redwood and Lord Forsyth, who had opposed plans to raise the headline rate to 40 per cent, applauded the Chancellor’s compromise but said it may still not raise much revenue which does beg the question why put the tax up in the first place.

So will this effect people buying property in Marbella, personally I very much doubt it as it will just be less money for those who already have it. it anything it might push them to come and live in Marbella