There have been 1,189 Golden Visa’s awarded to foreign property investors in Spain in the last two years, amounting to €910.6 million.
The scheme, introduced in 2013, issues residency visas in exchange for investment in Spanish property over the value of €500,000. With bargain properties for sale and the prospect of residency the scheme is an attractive option for non EU investors at the moment. One of the objectives of the scheme is to attract entrepreneurs to Spain to stimulate foreign investment in the property sector, public debt and the creation of jobs.
Russian investors made up 35% of luxury property sales, purchasing 417 homes from 2013-2015, with a value of €328 million. Chinese investors accounted for 30.5% of sales purchasing 363 luxury homes with a value of €268.4 million. Golden Visas were also awarded to property investors from Ukraine, Venezuela and the Middle East.
The Spanish property market in general has always attracted foreign investors; in the fourth quarter of 2015 foreign buyers made up 14.38% of all property sales in Spain, according to statistics by the Association of Registrars. The majority of these buyers were from the UK, France, Germany Sweden, Belgium, Italy and China.
The top province attracting the most property buyers was Barcelona, registering 490 transactions and making up 41.2% of total property sales. The region of Malaga came second with 211 transactions, followed by Madrid with 183, Girona, Alicante and Valencia. You will notice that four out of the top five preferred destinations are coastal areas.
