empty-houses-spainSPAIN has the fourth largest number of empty homes in the world.

A total of 3,443,365 residential properties are sitting unoccupied in the country, equivalent to 13.66% of the total housing stock.

Only Malta, Greece and Mexico have more empty houses, according to a study by non-governmental global group Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos.

Colder countries were found to have a lower rate of empty homes, with only 1% of houses vacant in Switzerland and Sweden.

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26 COMMENTS

  1. So,
    we were wrong, very wrong, I like others thought the number was over 1 million. There must be massive manipulation going on for property outside of Madrid and Barcelona not have dropped to something like 15 or 20% of pre 2009 values.

    I know someone who is going to do the opposite of what I told him was common sense to do namely to rent his home in the UK and rent an apartment in Spain. He does’nt speak castillano or even andaluz and he’s going to buy in or around Almeria. He will almost certainly buy from an English and get scewed – la genta es muy stupido, es la verdad.

    • “He does’nt speak castillano”
      “CASTILLANO”?? And wtf is that?
      And since WHEN the Andaluz is a different language?
      But the icing on the cake is “la genta es muy stupido” LOL
      You are talking about yourself, no?

  2. That’s a staggering amount. But do we have a list of common reasons? e.g. holiday homes, builders going bust, can’t sell, bad areas, unfinished, etc. So there’ no shortage in Spain and a lack of supply in the UK … so the answer is? … and so cheap right now. There’s some great bargain in the Hondon Valley … http://www.hondonvillas.net what are you people waiting for, come live in the sun and forget Brexit!

  3. Spanish people go to England and come back with a higher standard of professionalism, higher incomes, better lives. English people go to Spain full of hope that they can be part of the community, and get robbed, humiliated and disrespected beyond belief.. Spain rot in pieces

    • But Stuart… You should know that the vast majority of british immigrants are drunkards and hooligans. They get robbed by other brktish immigrants who also are drunkards and hooligans AND thieves.
      Thats why british immigrants and tourist are not very appreciated in Spain, Europe and the world.

      • LoL My wife and I are English and we live in France. All of our French neighbours are very friendly and say that they are happy that we have come here to live with them. Of course, we are not like the British stereotype that you have portrayed and neither are ninety odd percent of the other Brits living abroad anything like the stereotype that you have described. You need to be careful of that racist outlook that you are exhibiting.

  4. These are’nt great bargains, these are the normal badly built Spanish rubbish – no insulation, almost certainly no DPCs, you can buy cheaper in most French regions. I’m surprised the OP let this self publicity stand.

    • On the nail Stuart – the building regulations here are a lower standard than the UK’s were in 1950. The Eurocodes took 40+ years to agree and Spain just ignores them. With dodgy lawyers, corrupt systems and officials, not to mention the crazy, poorly drafted legislation and illegal funding banks – is it any wonder?

  5. Over the last years most of the Spanish Mediterranean Coast undergoes an enormous urban growth, mainly linked to the tourist and real estate sectors.
    Urbanization process is managed without any citizen participation and it’s causing irreparable environmental damages. Housing sector growth in the Mediterranean tourist areas cannot be understood taking into account only the Spanish investments. People from Britain, Germany and other Western European countries acquire thousands of new built housing units each year, fuelling a speculative dynamic.
    The worst part are, of course, the british developers and builders.
    Like in Britain, they work with the worst quality standards, where buildings collapse just after being “inaugurated”. Luckily, the new relationship between the UK and the EU will prevent those ladrones to work in Spain or the rest of the EU.

    • Hey Pablo, you need to quote your sources when you go cutting-and-pasting lol (this one is from http://rua.ua.es/dspace/handle/10045/2775?locale=en). As anyone knows, Spain has some of the worst quality housing in Europe. Spanish developers exist to fleece people of money with properties that are either poor quality, illegal, or irregular (or all three of course). Spain’s over-development is done on Spanish soil, and that means Spain is ultimately to blame for all the eventual fall-out. It doesn’t care if it over-builds, it doesn’t care if their is no enforcement, it doesn’t care (or even know) if a property is illegal or irregular. It’s one big system to con people. The Spanish are equally affected.

      The article (which you passed off as your own writing) is correct when it says “People from Britain, Germany and other Western European countries acquire thousands of new built housing units each year”. And who owned the land in the very beginning? Who allowed the properties to be built, which lawyers were involved, and which town halls and notaries signed all of the documents? Yes, Spanish ones. It all begins with Spain. Why did Spain allow the Costa’s to suffer so such over-development? Answer: Spanish greed.

  6. For far too long the OP has allowed posts like this from Pablo to stand and for me this degrades what the OP should stand for. It promotes blatant advertising masquerading as news stories, so adios to everyone.

    • Don’t leave us Stuart your knowledge on certain matters far outweighs what the OP allows Pablo to get away with. Naturally the only way is to ridicule this nutter and no doubt you are bright enough to do so or better still just ignore him. Must admit though OP does have strange way’s in allowing certain comments but then it’s a way of enticing others to respond. It’s all part of a game and part of a comments section to continue.

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