Opinion: Many Brits Waiting to Buy Spanish Property when Market Bottoms

It has been revealed in the last few days that the Spanish economy is contracting at a record rate; down 1.9% on a quarterly basis, and 3.0% on an annual basis in the first quarter of this year. The story is similar to that of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as the trio prove the correlation between the bigger the boom the harder the fall.

Spain's economic plight will not be viewed in a negative light by all parties however. Spain is the biggest recipient of British tourists -- as ABTA told me last week -- with over 12million Brits holidaying in Spain every year. Therefore Spain is still the most popular choice when it comes to British holiday home buyers. This has been shown by many UK property portals putting Spain as most popular according to the number of searches within their site.

Spain's economic plight is not having any effect on its popularity with British tourists, though the strong Euro is expected to dent it slightly. It is therefore logical that Spain will remain very popular with British holiday home buyers also. As sales have plummeted it seems likely that they are waiting on the sidelines seeing just how far prices will fall before buying.

Thus, the current economic news will be viewed positively by those wanting to buy property in Spain, because it will increase the downward pressure on property prices by collapsing internal property sales even further.