
Valencia Voted Best City for Expats in 2024 by InterNations
Valencia, Spain, has reclaimed its spot as the best city in the world for expatriates, according to the 2024 Expat City Ranking by InterNations.
“Regulation, fees, visas – 2025 already shaping up to be an interesting year for Spanish property…” Kieran Byrne, HomeEspana CEO, looks forward to 2025.
CEO of HomeEspaña now for 23 years, Kieran Byrne updates us with his perspective on the current Spanish property market and insight into how things are going so far in 2025.
There’s no escaping it – global events combined with the state of European economies brought an air of uncertainty to property markets in 2024. Across the continent, we had to deal with the effects of changing governments, high inflation, high interest rates, shifting tax rules and increasing regulation. Then towards the end of 2024, we experienced the terrible floods in Valencia. Events like that really put everything in perspective. Life is slowly returning to normal in the affected areas, but those tragic events have left a mark on everyone in the local community.
The corner of Spain where we operate is not typical of the country’s overall nationwide economy or property market. The Costa Blanca is predominantly a holiday home and retirement destination. UK buyers historically leading the way for us, but in the last two years, I’ve witnessed a dramatic rise in demand from other nationalities, injecting an international vibe into resorts. The Valencian Community is beginning to feel a bit like Barcelona, Mallorca and the Costa del Sol.
The Dutch became our number one foreign market in 2024, followed by the British and Germans. The tough pandemic years encouraged us to also focus just as much on the domestic as our more traditional non-resident market. Our domestic market, which includes foreign expats already living in Spain as well as Spaniards, has grown dramatically and would now rank alongside the Dutch.
Once the bottleneck of Covid was released, 2022-23 were particularly busy years for us. And now in 2025, yes, the best properties still sell fast, but we’re also seeing a shortage of stock, which is putting pressure on the market. In my mind, there are two main causes of this.
Firstly, potential vendors are holding out in case of further price rises, after seeing neighbours sell fast at good prices. That’s a tricky one to call, as from our side, there are new challenges to confront each month, with local and global politics influencing demand and prices, so no-one can really predict if prices will continue to rise or not.
Secondly, in the southern part of Alicante, British residents aren’t selling up so readily – since Brexit they’re understandably not willing to give up their residency status quite so quickly. This is less apparent in the north Costa Blanca and the Valencia metropolitan area, where there is a greater mix of Spanish and foreign owners.
After the rush of the past couple of years, when agents were able to achieve quick sales without much effort, buyers are searching for value and getting the right valuation, and having experienced help, is more important than ever.
HomeEspana might not have the cheapest headline fees, we know that, but we do a lot more than people generally realise. Our clients, both buyers and sellers, get the full service, with a strong focus on aftersales and making sure sales go through with all sides satisfied. Already, we’re getting increasing numbers of vendors coming to us who have failed to find a buyer, having been promised the world for seemingly low fees elsewhere.
In more challenging markets, sellers will depend more than ever on experienced estate agents with proven marketing and sales expertise, plus a realistic approach to pricing – oh, and good old-fashioned customer service! These are values that we’ve held dear at HomeEspaña for more than two decades.
The past 18 months has also been a period of increased regulation – both for us at trade level and for consumers. From our standpoint as a company, we welcome any new measures that make the market a safer, fairer and more enjoyable environment to operate in and live.
Firstly, in October 2022 the Valencian Community’s government introduced a new law requiring all estate agents in the region to join a registry. To be eligible to register, agents must meet a set of criteria covering the physical location of their premises, their qualifications and accreditations, and their professional insurance.
Here at HomeEspaña we’ve been fully supportive of the new regulation and registered immediately. We are also members of the Agente de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria (API), a national association with its own code of conduct.
Schemes like these are a means for maintaining ethical standards in the Valencian property market and help to ensure agents such as ourselves always act appropriately. For you, the consumer, they help you to identify quality estate agents.
In August this year, the regional government introduced measures to regulate tourist rentals. Under the new rules, all rented property in the Valencian Community, which includes the Costa Blanca, now falls into one of three categories – tourist, seasonal or long-term.
A key point is that tourist rental properties require a tourist licence from the government and cannot be let to the same client for more than 10 nights at a time. At the same time, we’re starting to see residents’ associations (or communities of owners) using their powers to ban tourist rentals in their respective communities.
Don’t be spooked by all this.
These types of regulation and measures have already happened in other parts of Spain and Valencia really is just playing catch up. We always try and keep our clients up-to-date, but we try not to speculate and just publish information when we’re confident it’s relevant and accurate. You can read our explainer about changes in rental regulations.
HomeEspaña’s team is geared up to advise and help clients offer their property for tourist rentals. Let us make the process easy for you – it’s part of the service offered by our experienced after sales team.
There is a bigger picture. While the new requirements might seem like another annoying piece of paperwork, applied correctly they should benefit everyone. The tourist rental landscape will become more transparent, better controlled and the overall standard of accommodation should be higher.
The recent proposals put forward by the PSOE government for additional tax on non-EU buyers have also caused a bit of a scare, especially for our British clients, but I don’t feel it is time for panic just yet! After the initial news, we’ve seen plenty of counter-narratives, and the legal community has weighed in with reasons why this is unlikely to ever develop much further. Our feeling at HomeEspana is that such extreme measures are unlikely to be introduced, there are questions whether it’s just party politics, and EU law and the ability of local government in Valencia to set their own taxes mean we’ll just take a ‘wait and see’ approach for now.
The thorny issue of Brexit and what it means for UK buyers never really goes away, but there are plenty of ways we can help now if you are coming from the UK – or any other non-EU country – and want to settle here in Spain. We published an update on visa and residency options in December 2024, which you can read here – Visa and Residency in Spain – and we’ll keep updating our clients if any additional changes occur.
The origin of clients might change, regulations may shift and tighten, but this part of Spain is always likely to be a part of the world that attracts clients looking for a healthy, happy environment for holidays or retirement. We always take a cautious approach with our own plans, we think this year there might be the scope to open another property showroom, if we can find the right location, and we’ll seek to expand our associated mortgage and insurance brands to bring more services and better value to our clients.
Kyna Insurance grew from an increasing demand for our clients to help provide buildings and contents insurance. It provides a simple solution and peace of mind for many of our owners here in Spain.
Hipoteken Mortgages provides a bespoke mortgage service, searching the best rates in Spain and making the process straightforward.
Our priority remains, as it has since 2002, to offer a premium service to sellers and buyers in Valencia and the Costa Blanca.
Take care everyone.
Valencia, Spain, has reclaimed its spot as the best city in the world for expatriates, according to the 2024 Expat City Ranking by InterNations.
Spain’s Congress approved a significant reform to expedite the eviction process for illegal occupants, commonly known as “okupas.” This legislative change aims to streamline legal proceedings, enabling property owners to reclaim their properties more swiftly.
HomeEspaña is looking for Real Estate Agents to join our team in our Montserrat, Valencia office. Find out more…
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