Let’s have a look at Spain.
Debt to GDP 109%
Trade balance -$4.1 Billion
Bank Interest Rate 3%
Inflation 3.1% (seriously massaged)
Economic Growth rate 2.1% (seriously massaged)
Youth unemployment 25%
Population decreasing by approximately 0.1% a year.
Tax Rates: personal 19%
Corporation 25%
Gold Holdings 281 tons
The country is in the same condition as the rest of western Europe.
I do wonder what happened to all that gold the Spaniards shipped back from South America. Is that all they’ve got left?
The main takeaways from the above figures are that the government is seriously in debt, and the debt is worsening, much as it is in England.
Youth unemployment is stubbornly high, and large parts of the country are losing people.
What that all means is that there is going to be a continuing downwards pressure on house prices. With large numbers of people without a job, a shrinking population, and the march of AI and robots, Spain is going to need less and less homes as the years go by. I think it is the case that pretty well all over Western Europe the price rises of the past are part of history. I cant see those rises repeating. Prices may appear to rise, but only because the currency is continually being debased.
A move to Spain will only benefit buyers from Northern Europe due to the warmer weather in Southern Europe. The cost of living is generally cheaper in the south, otherwise there is not much difference.
Madrid and Barcelona are expensive areas, the costas are still hectic and there are some really good deals around, but there is more to Spain than the tourist areas. The cheapest Mediterranean coastal area is Almeria, but believe me that part of the world is a dump. You would do better to look at the smaller, and usually forgotten region of Murcia.
The North Atlantic coast is generally quiet. Santander and San Sebastian are the two main towns, both of which are rather nice. Then there is a narrow coastal strip between the Picos and the Ocean. Finally there is North-West Spain which is solidly agricultural, with exceptional quality sea-food. It is also one of the wettest areas of Spain.
The centre of the country is largely empty. It isn’t going to interest anyone other than staunch Spain lovers with a good grasp of the language.
All around the coasts are tourist resorts, many of which are lonely abandoned places. I used to live in one such, down on Spain’s south-western edge. The place is called Ituri. When I first visited the area a couple of decades ago the place was deserted. I deliberately drove down every road and only saw signs of habitation in twelve apartments. I later moved there, and even then most of the properties were empty. The same was true of the truly coastal spots like Isla Cristina, and surrounding spots.
I will be visiting these areas again next month, so I will keep you posted, and I’ll take pictures on the way.
The south is Andalusia, and the most authentically Spanish. I have to admit I love this part of Spain. To see why, you’d have to read my book Travelling the Back Roads of Spain.
Here’s a link to the book (US): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DH8JVTBP
The UK link is similar: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DH8JVTBP
I cover the whole country, from Northern Spain (in France), to the southern tips of the country. I have tramped the roads over the course of the past sixty years, and probably spent a third of my life living there.
You will find I use a nome de plume as there are rather a lot of writers called John Clare out there, but apparently there is only one Johnsie St Clare, so I chose that for my novels, and I’m being hassled to use it for everything else as well
Here is a short extract from that book.
Green Spain
It's a dull morning, but before us is the open road. We are heading west out of the Basque country into Cantabria. .
All along the north coast of Cantabria are the foothills of the Picos de Europa, covered in lush green, with small valleys funnelling into the sea; small inlets where the sea brushes in beside the hills, and, as it retreats, leaves a bank of sand overshadowed by woodland clinging to the steep sides of the hills.
Inlet after inlet cuts the coastline. Here and there are villages, usually set back from the coast behind a rise in the land for protection from the winter winds. Farmers are cutting small patches of grass. Behind are wife and children with rakes, collecting the new-mown grass into rows, and then into small domes
Down on the beach another farmer is raking up the seaweed left by the retreating tide and bundling it into a cart. The tractor tows the cart up a perilous track and the seaweed is dumped in giant molehills on the fields as fertiliser. This is then spread slowly with a long-handled rake wielded by a farm-hand with a bent back.
Further along the coast is a large valley where the river runs from tiny stream to estuary over the space of half a mile. Set in behind the trees, and in amongst the folds in the rock, are secret houses.
The sun is shining, the beaches are empty, the leaves glisten with the drops from yesterday's rain, the fields are green, there are cows with massive horns, farmers are tilling tiny plots, and up in the sky a few white clouds define the clear pale blue.
Further west are the high mountains of the Picos de Europa, with snow shining on them. The mountains are a jagged lot, and all around them are the lesser mounds of the Cantabrian mountain range, which seems to stretch almost from the Pyrenees to the edge of Asturias. To the north is the blue calm sea, and dozens of little bays. For every steep valley that cuts into the foothills, there is a small rushing stream tumbling down the rocks and fanning out onto a small flat lea before being claimed by the waves toppling onto a crescent sandy beach.
Going west out of Santander, the road turns into a motorway that runs to Oviedo. But after twenty kilometres you can turn off to the north, along side roads that take you back to the coast, and the old town of Santillana. It is one of those strange places which seem to have had a different life from all its neighbours.
The houses have balconies of wood, and escutcheons sculpted on the walls. As the guide book says, everyone seems to have been an hidalgo, an 'hijo de algo', or 'son of someone'. In other words, someone with pretentions to grandeur. It is a tourist town, with quaint restaurants, a quiet town square surrounded by sixteenth century houses, wooden balconies everywhere, and massive stone walls, all surrounded by gently undulating countryside of small fields and grazing cows.
But the main attraction is under the fields: the caves of Altamira, which you can no longer visit, but you can, however, visit the museum, which has a representation of the caves. There you can see copies of the famous cave drawings of bison
12,000 years ago the area was inhabited by Stone Age man, and the caves are covered in black and red drawings of bison. Unfortunately a build up of white mould, the result of people breathing in the caves, led to the deterioration of the paintings in the fifties and sixties, and the caves were re-sealed.
Further west are salty marshes where the trees have died, leaving white stumps sticking up from the shallow water behind great dunes of sand.
Further west still are the woods, the valleys, and the tiny streams flowing into short estuaries, and then to the sea past great spits of sand. It is like English countryside at its best mixed with southern European beaches at their best.
Traveling inland you find the peaks are shrouded in haze, and the road twists in and out of the rocks. One minute you are driving along the marshy area of the estuary, and half a mile later you are into the mountains: big hunky fellows that hug the road and muscle up to one another, dropping boulders onto the road below. Another twist and a turn and you are in a mountainous maze with only a tiny patch of sky visible above. There are no houses here. There is no room to build. Then you turn another double bend, and there, right by the side of the road, its back against a massive cliff, is a three storey house. What crazy person lives here with the road beside his window, the rock crowding his back, and the river roaring just beyond the road?
Culled from the book. Here’s the link:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DH8JVTBP
Next week I shall go through my thoughts about life in general, and real estate in particular. This will start with a brief trip right at the other end of Spain, and, for what it’s worth, my own take on what is likely to happen to old Europe, and what I’m going to do about it. See you then.
JC
A New Life in Spain?