Property Shoppers Targeting Alicante Spain

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Bargain hunting Spain property shoppers are increasingly targeting Alicante, the port city on the Costa Blanca, according to a new study.

More than one-third of the queries to Kyero.com in the first half of 2010 focused on Alicante, compared to 29 percent in 2009, the property portal says. Only 13 percent targeted Malaga, the gateway to the Costa del Sol, down from 14 percent in 2009.  The results reflect 130,000 e-mail inquiries to the site in the first six months of 2010.

"In all likelihood, this trend of popularity is a reflection of buyers finding property bargains in the provinces where there are the most properties available," according to Kyero managing director Martin Dell. "These top-five provinces are likely to offer buyers the biggest discounts, and better bargains."

Almost half of the inquiries -- 47 percent -- were looking for property in the inexpensive €50,000-€150,000 range, according to Kyero's biannual report.

Despite the slowdown in the market, Dell says the number of visitors to Kyero.com jumped 39 percent from 2009 to 2010, making the report "more representative than ever of foreign buyer activity in the Spanish property market."

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