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.

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

Great news for property Costa del Sol market with the news that average property prices fell by 4.4% year on year to the end of May according to Tinsa with prices actually only falling a fraction from the previous month and this is Spain as a whole.

Costa del Sol Property in 2010

Interestingly the Islands and the coasts are fairing the best which isn’t surprising at all in that the market in these areas have been heavily supported by International buyers taking advantage of the fantastic property deals which he have seen first hand in Costa del Sol and Marbella.

We could even start to see price rises at the start of next year. We just hope you come round to our way of thinking and believe our message that 2010 is the year to buy before its too late

This week we have started to see glimpses of what the property for sale Spain market will be link in 2011 and overall its not good news for agents who rely on International clients.

Marbella Property Views

This week we had a client who wanted to buy a villa in Nueva Andalucía with a budget around the one million Euro mark. This client had just lost out on one of the last fantastic deals and asked us to find the next best thing after several days we came up with the best deal by far in Nueva Andalucía a villa reduced from €1.5m to €860,000 but the problem for the client and for us is she missed out on better value and is now sitting tight waiting for a similar deal to come round again. Our view is the client will be extremely lucky to find a better deal than the one we proposed but this story in itself tells you some of the problem that the Spanish property market will face in 2011 in that now we are out of recession there are very few distressed vendors left who will hold out for a fair price and buyer who cant come to terms with the fact that they completely missed the boat.

As they say every cloud has a silver lining and this particular one comes in the shape of the clients who have not been to Spain before 2011 and more importantly the possible exchange rate getting well over €1.20 to the pound thus giving buyers up to 15%  savings.

Our message as always is make you buy in 2010 and if you see a great deal grab it and don’t be one of those If Only people come 2011

Time to Buy Spanish Property

Well they say knowledge is power and content is king on the internet but unfortunately the Internet and the content currently being distributed via the internet is actually not helping people who want to buy property in Spain..

There are lot of articles written by people who aren’t on the ground here in Spain especially in key location areas such as Marbella, Javea, Puerto Andratx and Mallorca.. One article claimed that property prices had another 12% to fall whilst I think they are living in cloud cuckoo land you can understand peoples views considering all the economic factors out there.  However in prime locations the reality is that we are now at the bottom of the market and that people need to remember that we went into a Spanish property recession two years before the rest of the world and people tend to overlook this.  Property may fall further but it will be property that no international buyer would want to buy.

So for the international buyer what opportunities lie ahead in 2010, To my mind the last great Spanish property deals are what lies ahead and this is a message that just isn’t coming through the internet where property portals, PR websites and other Real Estate companies are sending conflicting data and for once I think we can say knowledge isn’t power and content is not king especially when the knowledge and content is basically flawed.

Our advice would be to buy Spanish property in 2010 or regret it for the rest of your life. The choice is yours and we hope you make the right choice

According to Standard & Poor the Spanish property market crash has not yet hit bottom. The Standard & Poor’s rating agency believes that the country is still “a long way to go,” and that prices could still fall another 12%.. Well that’s there point of view at least.

Nikki Beach White Party

The authors believe that “the massive stock of supply” of housing (around a million homes, according to some estimates) should have caused a greater fall in prices. In any case, since the creation of new homes has fallen to about 300,000 a year, “will take several years to absorb the excess.” I don’t think anyone disputes that just there conclusions about the market dropping another 12%

According to official figures contained in the report, the annual rate in house prices in Spain fell by 6.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

S & P also includes data provided by Tinsa, one of the largest assessment agencies property in Spain, which estimates that property prices fell by 5.3 percent in the last 12 months to March 2010 compared to June, 6 per cent in December 2009.

Accordingly, the price of housing in Spain, where economic fundamentals are “bad”, have not decreased more than 16 percent, far less than what happened in the UK or Ireland.

There my lovely S&P the bit in bold tells you everything you need to know about the Spanish property market and unfortunately such a report doesn’t take into consideration the differences you have in the different markets where Costa del Sol property has done very well considering the oversupply and somewhere like Costa de la Luz is on its knees.

Sure it might effect some areas of Spain but overall it’s a misguided report  but unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems we have on the ground as some buyers actually believe property prices will fall further when its clear they won’t and the facts are property prices in areas such as Marbella have stopped falling.

You would believe it but I have to Spam at least 200 posts a week on this blog and maybe more. Were very tolerant on here all you have to do is read the blog make a comment about the blog and unless it’s completely stupid the post will be approved. Why waste your time typing something that won’t be approved when with a little thought you could be rewarded with a good quality link to your website.

Marbella Villas

For example if you see a post about Marbella Villas then why not just type something about the villa in question and try and be a bit cute. I post a lot on other blogs and I always take time to make a considered post that I think will get approved and because I have my own blog I try to make it interesting for that blog

So what do you want to be a Spammer or a Blogger?

I have recently been looping at other blogs and two blogs stood out as really interesting with the first one being Costa del Sol Life with some very good up to date news but also some very challenging articles and I especially liked the article Sex in Spain.

The second blog is more in keeping with our main real estate business but the Spanish property news blog has some very detailed and up to date Spanish property news that we don’t really cover because as you know we are primarily a Marbella property website.

We hope you find the two new resourced blog useful.