How long do people go on vacation for?

I saw that in our office, things close down for August. Do other people take July instead or is July off as well for most people?

Where do all these people go? I have never had a month vacation.

For non-Spaniards, what do you do? Is this when most people go back to their homes for a nice long visit?

Thanks.

hey c_i_m.

ok, now that this thread is way off-topic, here goes.

no real answer to that one.

most spanish work contracts provide for the months vacation a year (21 days not including weekends of course).

not everyone can have the whole 21 days in a row however. most contracts will stipulate that you can take half when you want and the other half when the boss says it is ok to do so.

some take, july, some august, some both, some take off from july 15th to august 15th.

more and more people have started taking september instead due to the fact that most go to the beach and in july and august you cannot get a square inch on the sand unless you get to the beach at 7am

my example this year.

ena, baby lync and will take 2 weeks in july to go to u.k. and visit my bro and his family.

we will then take 6 weeks in august-sept. to go to her beach house.

NOTE: this year is an exception since she is off-work for a year to take better care of our baby boy. normally she would have work (aside from the boy) and would not get 2 months off.

normally we take 2 weeks whenever we want to go visit fam.&friends in u.s.a, u.k. or take a diff. international trip and another 2 weeks in summer (sept. usually) to head to the beach.

quote:

I have never had a month vacation.

you and hundreds of millions more canadians and americans.

about 75% of my clients (my business has nothing to do with mutimadrid) are from u.s.a. and canada and when they come to spain for their "vacations" i can tell you that they always try to pack too much into their 1 - 2 weeks paid vacation for the year. when they find out that the spaniards get 4 weeks even in the most normal job they freak.

and if i tell you that in the u.k. (at least in my brothers case) they get 5 weeks paid vacation per year

work to live, don't live to work.

saludos,
jer...

It's amazing how fast it actually flies by, when you get used to it. We are freelance so can't really take that much time off, but yes, many people go back to their home countries. We were more likely to take time in Spain just getting to know our new country. Enjoy the change!

Back on topic, as a landlord (rented out our place in Germany) and as a tennat I see both sides of the coin, and I agree good tennats are worth there weight in gold. We decided against raising the rent on our tennats for another year and as well our landlord didn't raise our rent (5% of 950 is a good chunck of money) thankfully.

Along the coast desperate sellers are resorting to renting and rents are dropping as the housing crash takes place. There are loads of stories of brits who bought a place and suddenly are having financial problems and then can't sell. The worse off are those who bought off plan, put 20% down and then had the developer go under along with thier deposit. sad

Interest ratess are set to rise again which will really knock the stuffing out of the market. My own prediction is that house prices along the coast will colapse and in Madrid they will drop at least by 50% and even then they will still be out of reach for the average Spanish wage earner.

quote:

My own prediction is that house prices along the coast will colapse and in Madrid they will drop at least by 50%...

GOD i hope so. if prices drop 50% in madrid we could actually afford to buy a nice place.

i have noted most of the real estate agencies have begun to list rentals as well which is an indication that the sales are dying out and they need to supplement their incomes.

the real estate agency on my street (an "alfa" franchise) is a joke. looking in the windows, the sale prices of the apts. they have been listing for a year have not dropped at all

go figure.

saludos,
jer...

I'm not really sure how the Spanish can afford to buy anything! Even reasonable mortgage say 250.000€ is almost 1400€ a month!!! How can anyone afford that, that is even more than were will to pay.

Add in the fact that appartments in Madrid run in the 800.000 range who is buying all the places????

It's a total mystery to me

Well if the prices haven't gone down on those apartments then its probably people that are in no hurry to sell their apartments.

Company's drop their prices because they are in a hurry to get revenue because they need to repay their debts or their shareholders.

As opposed to people who bought the houses just to live in or people who bought them as investments. As long as those people aren't in a hurry to sell or don't need to. Then you won't have a crash in the market value. Especially if they own the houses out right or can still afford the mortgage.

The reason the housing market crashed in the US is because people bought houses they couldn't afford (mainly due to consumer stupidity and predatory lending), and after a few quarters, they recognized it was not maintainable and had to move out. Dropping house prices in the area, thus people who had paid 15-20% down on the house, might have seen their whole equity wiped out. These people who would have normally been able to sell and downsize or move, could no longer do that, thus fruther aggrevating the cycle.

I bet that lots of the price increase in Spain happened on the coast, tourist who had money thus increasing prices there and creating jobs on the coast, driving growth, improving the economy. That took a while to make it to Madrid, and it will take a while before it dissappears. But yes, an individual who took out a 500,000 Euro loan to buy a fancy place on the cost for 600,000 Euro, is broke now, because I bet that place is selling for 400,000. But everyone else will be fine. Especially the couple from the UK (or whoever else lives on the coast) who bought the place after retirement. They aren't thinking of selling for antoher 20-30 years.

Madrid is a big Metrop, just like NY how can an average person afford a 1 Mill apt in SOHO. They commute for 1-1.5 hours and all works. Similar to London, an "average person" can't afford a house in downtown. They live in the subburbs and commute in.

With a strong metro, I bet that Madrid will develop like NY or Toronto. But yes, prices are still crazy, they will continue being crazy until people want to live in Attica, NY (replace with no name town, Spain).

So it really depends who the main renters are in Madrid. From what I am getting, there aren't big condo developments, perhaps that will happen soon, as the market can't sustain 5-6 floor buildings, and with 50-60 floor buildings you can fit more people.

I guess it will be good if you start seeing some relaxation in the rental market. Lots of owners would rather rent out the place for a few years while the market recovers rather than leaving it empty.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob in Madrid:
I'm not really sure how the Spanish can afford to buy anything! Even reasonable mortgage say 250.000€ is almost 1400€ a month!!! How can anyone afford that, that is even more than were will to pay.

Add in the fact that appartments in Madrid run in the 800.000 range who is buying all the places????

It's a total mystery to me

Who buys these places?

People who want to live in the big city.
African dictators with money to launder
Millionaires who have many homes all over the world.
Companies and countries who buy these homes for their expats.
Rich people in Spain.

You can't take the value of the most expensive places in town. You are talking about average people. Well, I bet the average person can buy a house for 150-200,000 and commute a while (1-1.5hours) to get into work. That's where regular people can live.

actually you can find more reasonably priced places within Madrid city limit. Wife had a co-worker buy property for a more reasonable 440.000 euros.

Also what you have to understand, not only are prices insane but wages (as Jer has mentioned) are crap. Average wage is around 1000 a month. A professional might earn a bit more but wages are very very low here. Think Tim Horton wages and Toronto house prices. A top dollar wage would be 30.000 a year, most earn much less than that.

Most Spanards live at home till there mid 30s or latter or in shared flats. Very few can afford to live on there own.

Even an hour outside of the city Guadalix prices start at 250.000 way above what the average Spanard can afford.

EDIT: actually if you go to the far south of Madrid (very working class) you will find property that the average Spanish could afford,question is would you want to live there.

a better example

If you moved to Vancouver on your current salary could you afford to buy a place?

this is from another board so I won't post the link (web master tend not to like having competitors links posted )

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There is a saying in the stock market, "don't catch a falling knife" and "bottom picking is a nasty business". These sayings are best taken heed of. I know lots of people who were greedly buying up UK banks recently cos they were 30% off their highs and a "bargain". Unfortunately for these people these banks have dropped another 30% and there is still no bottom in sight.

People forget but property is like any other market or commodity, it tends to have a huge momentum of its own and a bit like a supertanker it takes many miles to slow down, let alone turn around, thats why the market kept going up despite all the doom merchants and the negative press. But like a tanker or a roller coaster once it turns it gains momentum in the opposite direction. Anyone silly enough to get in its way is likely to be crushed without recognition.

Property cycles tend to last a minimum of 10 yrs so its likely that it will be 5yrs from now that the market will even think of turning up. Just as prices got too high, much too high, prices are likely to overshoot on teh downside and get much too cheap. Many many a time have I looked at stock prices in amazement in a big sell off, just wishing that I wasn't already so committed, not quite believing the prices. However simple logic tells you that its the same for everyone else, the bargains are there simply because no one has any money to buy them, everyone has already shot their bolt.

There will be blood in the streets before this is over in Spain. The pyschology of markets is well studied and goes through different well defined stages. A while back we reached the top which was characterised by "exuberance", where there is such confidence that the market will go higher people panic buy and lose all sense of reality when it comes to priceing or quality of choice. This was very clearly evidenced in Spain, this message board sadly is chock a block with real life examples, and the owners for sale section is a grim reminder of what people bought.

The current stage is denial, which comes after the top, and is a period when people begin to realise the awful truth, but hold out for "better times just around the corner" and blame the market or agent because their property won't sell. Property is not priced realistically and people still are miffed that their apartment is not worth X thousands that it was supposedly a few months/years back. Asking prices don't fall much, but selling prices are perhaps 20% below the ask.

We are rapidly moving into the anger/acceptance stage where people realise thay have been really silly and infact the press is right when it calls doom and gloom. People then tend to look around to blame someone else. People that can't sell hang on in the vain hope that things will mysteriously get better.

Finally there comes the depression stage, where people are so sick of the worrry of owning a pile of bricks that they would love dearly to see the back of, they give in and dump the property at any price, jsut to get rid of it.

THis is the blood stage and is called a capitulation. Already incredibly depressed prices suddenly drop another huge heart stopping plunge. The only buyers are now people who have seen this sort of thing before, prices are unbelievable, far less than construction, but there is so mcuh on offer and so few people with the neccesary finance. All of the speculation and excess money and debt gets washed out of the system and the bottoming and repair process can begin.

There has been a lot said about distreessed prices and bargain prices. However with such a long bull market in property its easy to get mislead about what is a bargain price. A 50% reduction might seem like a giveway, but some prices were so ridiculous its still not a bargain in realiity.

Its useful then to have a non emotional yardstick to measure value by and the best and time tested way to do this is rental yield. Take the place I'm renting currently. The rent is a rather generous ( abit high) 650 euros a month. A year this is 7800. The owners think its currently worth around 250K, its a three bedroom town house in the CT.Just on an interest only basis and ignoring all costs (in relaity perhaps 20% on the asking price and set up costs) it would cost me 12500 euros a year to "rent" it from the bank. On top of that I would have maintenance costs etc. Looking at it another way the gross yield to the owner is around 3%, nett perhaps 2%.

Conclusion - Professional investors and property funds are looking for a min yield of atleast double this, perhaps a lot more. Historically sensible yields are in the 8 to 12 percent range. The only time it makes sense to ignore this is when property is riseing quickly in price, but then you need to know when to head for the door.

By thsi measure property around me in the CT is still 50% overvalued, despite the claims by desperate agents of "bargains". This is the sort of advice that people should have been learning on those so called "investor courses". However the courses by nature were mostly a vehicle jsut to sell property, and if they would have mentioned this important benchmark, then they would have had to advise clienst to stop buying property about 5 years ago.

My advice to anyone with a property they have to selll is to move out of denial, accept the mistake and chalk it up to experience. Everyone in property or stock investing makes mistakes. Get realistic on priceing and marketing. Stop thinking about past prices it might have sold at, or about breaking even. If you paid too much its hardly the new owners responsibility to pay that much to you. Calculate how much another year of paying the finance will cost you and knock that off the price. Ask the agent what price he/she can really shift it at.

If you want to or can tough it out. be realistic and plan for the worst. Another five years should do it.

Finanly to anyone thinking of buying, rent for 6 months and think again. Don't buy until its atleast as cheap as renting. It will get there and past it trust me on this one. And GOOD LUCK to everyone selling .

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by that measure it would be interesting to see how overvalued Madrid is.

quote:

I guess it will be good if you start seeing some relaxation in the rental market. Lots of owners would rather rent out the place for a few years while the market recovers rather than leaving it empty.

This is so true. I just moved from La Latina to Puerta del Ángel and I am paying less in rent (75€ less) and I love the place. Everything is brand new and the apartment, totally renovated.

The area's not my favorite, but I can manage it for at least a year or two. The person wanted someone in the apartment who would take care of it and not destroy it. She didn't want to leave it empty either.

In general, I can see how many owners are dropping the rent on their places, not by much, but it's a start at least. I get several emails from idealista and they always have ads from owners who have dropped their prices.

Is there and end in sight? of course their is, but as ROb suggested, we just have to ride it out and see what happens in the end.

I have no interest in ever buying my own place and I am fine with renting. I don't want the responsability that comes with buying. We do have to remember that everyone in life is different.

Shawn

HOLY SHIT BATMAN

been getting emails from idealista for about 2 years now and your starting to see prices drop, usually 5.000 or 10.000 nothing to serrious

Got one today ¡Ha bajado 120.000 euros!

THAT'S A 50% DROP!!!!!!!!!

That is a desperate seller, think we're going to be seeing alot more of that. Unfortuanatly no pictures or address so I don't know if it's a good deal or not.

Rob,

The most that I have seen an apartment drop for renting is 75€, nothing more than that, but it's a start.

When I did my search, I put it in by the area where I wanted to live and some of those pictures showed places that looked like crap. I saw a picture for a studio on Gran Vía and the only picture shown was a picture of the bathroom. Maybe it was the bedroom too, hehe.

Will be keeping an eye out.

Shawn

Just saw a place on idealista and the price dropped from 800€ a month to 600€ a month.

That's the biggest decrease that I have seen yet. Hope to see more. There's no good that can come out of greed.

Shawn