by Claudio Lo Curlo, Director of Casc Antic BCN

Barcelona city centre attracts Spanish people and foreigners who want to buy properties. 2011 started with a good real estate activity in the centric area of the so called Ciudad Condal, due to the arrival of investors and simple city lovers looking for second hand apartments at good prices.
After the storm in real estate business, between the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, that brought a dry season for the property purchase, today we are growing again.
When the market produced an exorbitant rise of prices, also because of the banks and other financial institutions ‘ carelessness in lending money, the expected happened: the big bubble deflated, producing great price decreases with an approximate rate of 40 percent.
Doubtless, if we consider the national average, we can notice that the demand for apartments has grown a bit, in comparison to the years before the crisis. But the use of these values brings us to make two essential mistakes: first, comparing data using as a reference those years when the sector activity was impressive and characterized by an unusual non-selective growth for all the areas of Spain. Second, analyzing the actualities without differentiating parameters by province, areas, kind of properties, new or resale apartments.
We usually hear analysts talking about national real estate business and reporting, with logical pessimism, the wide number of great, brand new and empty buildings that homebuilder companies accumulate in peripheral areas of towns. Thinking about the real estate market as a single great basket to measure only the general offer of properties is an error, because the demand for flats always is selective: who needs a home or a “buy to let” property in the city centre of Barcelona, Madrid or San Sebastián, will not care about an apartment located 20, 30 or 40 kms far from the centre of those important European capitals, although he could find cheaper prices in the suburbs. A great number of factors influences the offer, and therefore the demand. That’s why talking about the real estate business and thinking only about homebuilder companies will be a wrong perspective: the building activity in centric areas is really low and the problems for homebuilders are antipodal to the agencies ’ ones, because the last ones don’t accumulate big buildings, acquired or built with prices determined before the crisis. The big blocks built in indiscriminately retrained land must keep on waiting, maybe for the demographic growth, for the constant moving from centre to periphery of those families searching for calmness or for the state intervention with promotion plans. In Barcelona centre, especially thanks to our company’s activity dedicated to the sale/purchase of properties in the old quarter, we can observe, since the end of last year, a strong growth of the request from national and foreign buyers, attracted by prices, cheaper than the ones in other European city centres.
Barcelona grows at fast pace year after year, and its international popularity as a brand is notable. Various sport activities, with their tournaments and celebrities, the cultural history of the city, with its eminent personalities and its transgressive art, the wide range of touristic alternatives offered by a seaside city, the outstanding gastronomy, the important meetings, the growing recognition as an attractive place for the world gay community: it’s not hard to understand that who comes from Paris, London or Milan to buy a second home or wants to invest in acquiring an apartment to rent it, will prefer to purchase in Barcelona city centre than in its suburbs.