The market in Marbella / Benahavis: more transactions & less price

The new price index for Marbella and Estepona have just been released by the Ministry of Housing showing again a low tendency in the first quarter of 2014. Although prices are showing signals of stabilization, the truth is that they are still falling down.




At the same time, the Ministry has released the data on the number of transactions closed in Marbella and Benahavis showing important increases. What would be then the conclusion and how does it fit with the reduced number of buyers we are noticing?

I think we have an easy one: there are less buyers but are more ready to buy and still making low offers for properties that are being accepted just to be able to close. If the market keeps on going in the same line, i.e. with the number of transactions increasing, the stocks will continue to go down and prices will finally reach the inflexion point and will start to rise. I have seen different reports from real estate experts giving different dates for the recovery (from the end of 2015 to 2019) but it is difficult to say. We were quite optimist for 2014 and, now, half of the year is gone and the market is still quite complicated. The summers of 2012 and 2013 were quite good and we hope that this year will be at least as good. Time will tell...