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We´ve all seen the headlines during the last 18 months. Not a week goes by without some sort of negative article in the UK media, or some ´hard-hitting´ TV documentary, lamenting the woes of the Spanish property market.
The media is all-powerful in the UK, and despite everyone protesting to the contrary, most of us believe what we read in the papers.
Within a very short space of time, the media is capable of ending the reign of politicians and football managers, of provoking unnecessary public health scares, and of destroying entire businesses and industries.
The problem with the media is that they tend to make sweeping generalisations, and profess to become experts in (often complex) issues.
Yes, there are problems in the Spanish property market, as there are in most property markets throughout the world. There have been cases of over-supply in certain areas, prices have been falling in certain areas, and vendors have been struggling to sell their homes in certain areas. Yet, if you picked up recent copies of the Daily Mail or the Sunday Times, you could be forgiven for thinking that every buyer of a Spanish property now finds him/herself in a helpless position of sitting on a worthless asset that will be impossible to sell.
Of course, the effect of articles with this sort of content is to strike fear into not only the hearts of vendors, who become even more desperate to sell, but also into the hearts of prospective buyers, who become convinced that they would be mad to enter the market at this time. So, the result of these articles is that any problems are simply exacerbated.
The real problem is not so much that the media are reporting on the state of the Spanish property market…it´s the WAY in which they are doing so. Quite simply, the reporting is largely irresponsible. For example, one respected journalist was advising prospective buyers to make aggressive offers for any properties that they liked in Spain, due to the ´glut´ of properties on the market. That all sounds great in theory, but with no actual understanding of the micro-markets in Spain, it could actually be viewed as bad advice.
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