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My mum phoned me earlier this week, in a very agitated state. “How are you coping? It must be terrible for everyone with property in Spain at the moment.”
When I asked her what had prompted this wave of concern, she told me that she had been reading an article in the Daily Mail, which painted a dismal picture of British owners of properties in Spain being forced to pack up and leave, and/or becoming trapped in a falling housing market.
Indeed, there are sad and worrying tales of British expats being forced into returning to the UK. This exodus has been fuelled by 2 factors – the lack of work and opportunity for expats as a result of the collapse of the Spanish property market (around which much of the employment opportunities were centred), and the fall in the value of sterling, meaning that those people (mainly pensioners) earning in pounds have seen their spending power derailed by approx 40% over the last 2 years.
For sure, many people have been affected, but let´s look at this realistically. If somebody from overseas tried to integrate into UK society without speaking English, and with no or very little in the way of cash reserves behind them, would you honestly expect them to survive, particularly during the worst economic downturn since the 30s?
Many people who came to Spain did so on the back of the property boom, with no savings, no ´Plan B´ and no prior research. It was a disaster waiting to happen for a lot of people.
But this is not true of all expats in Spain – why doesn´t the Daily Mail write an article about the tens of thousands of families and professional people who have successfully forged successful careers in Spain? Not everyone is ´trapped´ in the falling Spanish housing market. In fact most people that I know are quite content to ride things out, wait for the situation to improve, and to adjust their spending accordingly……like most people in the UK, I believe.
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