MARBELLA’S GROWTH

In 2000 the city had 98,823 inhabitants, in 2004, 116,234. This was due to the property boom. The intense property boom which started in the mid-nineties and lasted until 2004 has cooled off, and the market is returning to more normal and healthier conditions.

Since 2004, the real estate industry in Marbella and the Costa del Sol have really been transformed with new trends emerging. The market has remained quite solid though it has adjusted. The more expensive and best-located properties continue to be quite popular.

After a deep market recession at the start of the 90’s, the recovery started in 1993 and 1994, spearheaded by purchases at enviably low prices by some very investment savvy Spaniards from Madrid and the north of Spain.

In 1996, thanks to new infrastructure and the work of a public relations drive, Marbella’s population soared, helped by the regular influx of tourists. This generated a thriving business environment where restaurants and facilities of all types had a steady enough stream of customers to remain profitable for the whole year. In fact, Marbella is the only resort city on the Mediterranean Coast with a 12-month season.

This of course attracted real estate investors, such as speculators who were investing “off plan” with rates as low as 30% of the price because of their early investment in the property, when it was still being constructed. They would then sell the apartments at completion, often getting twice as much than they originally invested.

The second type of purchaser was the classic, regular buyer who wanted a property he could keep and use all year or at least part of the year. He was after the longer-term investment by renting the property out to third parties to produce a reasonable income from the investment.

In 2004 the rates started decelerating, which was normal as property cannot tolerate annual increases of 15 to 20% year after year, as they reach a limit where people simply cannot afford to buy.

But the best lesson from this is that less speculation and more personal use result in a more healthy market. Speculators are no longer the dominant investor in the region. Instead, there is a greater number of people who have just fallen in love with the area and want to live there. Others continue to invest but are more prudent about selecting developments. Location, quality of design, quality of construction, facilities, security and timing are the key factors they look for.

THE FUTURE OF INVESTING IN MARBELLA

Marbella itself is a refuge for the affluent citizens of Europe who have found it to be a paradise of perfect climate, sophisticated lifestyle, and world class amenities.

The Regional Government has also undertaken a plan which has built in measures to protect the environment from overbuilding and overcrowding, and there are also talks off future infrastructure and service improvements.

There are even steps being taken to build a new Coastal Train, as well as an expansion of the Malaga Airport to increase its capacity to handle 20,000,000 passengers a year. A faster “AVE” train service between Madrid and Malaga, will shorten the travel time to two and a half hours starting 2007, giving passengers a more effective alternative to air travel. The tunnel under San Pedro will also remove the age old bottleneck on the Coastal Road.

Property prices are more realistic and there will be less ‘overpricing’. There are also many resale or second-hand properties as less land is available for development.

In other words, Marbella will continue to attract buyers looking for quality properties, who want to taste the priveleged lifestyle available in this special multi-cultural community.

The beautiful seaside resort of Marbella is not just a luxury resort, it also has a rich history. In the mountains around Marbella experts have found numerous
excavations which have dated back to Paleolithic and Neolithic times. There are also vestiges of Phoenician and later Carthaginensian settlements which were found near the Rio Real. The city was called Salduba in Roman times,

During Islamic rule, Muslims built a castle in this city, which they enclosed with walls. The name Marbella is actually a derivative of Marbil-la, its name during the Islamic time. In 1485, the Spaniards regained control of the city, and during the centuries that followed, the city became bigger and bigger.

How it became the Home of the Nobles

Marbella was a small village before, with a population of 900, when the Prince Max Egon zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg and his heir Alfonso of Hohenlohe broke discovered it. He was so enamored with its beauty that he immediately began buying lands and developing it as a tourist destination. In 1954 he opened the Hotel Marbella Club, a resort with small homes nestled in a lush forest of 23.000 trees. He soon convinced other prominent European families to relocate there where they could savor a discreet luxury. Alfonso de Mora y Aragon, a Spanish socialite and brother to the queen Fabiola of Belgium was also a frequent vacationer.

In 1974 the Prince Fahd arrived and often visited there till his death in 2005. He would often have over a thousand guests including the then-anonymous Osama bin Laden.In the eighties one of Marbella’s most famous guests was Gunilla von Bismarck, who represented the jet set. In 1987 the city was swarmed by media due to the kidnapping of Melody Nakachian, daughter of a weapons struggler and the Korean princess and singer Kimera. Spanish celebrities spent summers there.

Today’s hottest Hollywood celebrities have made Marbella their vacation home, their favorite party place and even their favorite love nest. In fact celebrities are among Marbella most effective marketing icons, adding that touch of luxury and prestige that attract other people who want to taste a bit of what it feels like to be a star.

But Marbella was not always this way. Back in the 1950s, Marbella and the entire region of the Costa del Sol was not yet accorded the resort status attributed to a tourist area. Like the rest of the coastline of southern Spain, the whole place was considered a “wilderness” of deserted beaches, rolling hills, sugar cane fields and sleepy fishing villages.

The man generally thought to have put Marbella on the map was Alfonso von Hohenlohe, who saw in the sleepy seaside community, still reeling from the Civil War and poor in services and communications, a potential tourist hotspit. This entrepreneur, the godson of King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenia, built the Marbella Club Hotel amidst the pines that ran alongside the history town of Marbella, which had once seen the arrival of the Greeks, Romans, Moors and Arabians but would—in the next few decades—see the “invasion” of a different sort.

The jet-set people were looking for private and beautiful retreats, and von Hohenlohe gave them one. Unlike the France Riviera and Monaco, this simple natural paradise with its sunny climate and serene ambience was a delightful getaway that soon attracted aristocrats, tycoons, celebrities, and nobility. Some of its guests included Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Stewart Granger and Grace Kelly, and Omar Sharif.

Deborah Kerr was one of the earliest foreign residents of the resort. The leading actress lived here with her husband Peter Viertel. She was soon followed by Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer, Jean Cocteau, Guy de Rothschild, the Von Thyssens, Princess Von Bismarck and Romanian-born film director Jean Negelescu.. In 1970, Sean Connery and his wife Micheline Roguebrune bought a run down house on the beach near San Pedro and renovated it into their personal Mediterranean paradise, called Casa Malibu. Here they welcomed friends like Richard Burton, Omar Sharif, Michael Caine, Honor Blackman, George Best and Sean’s close friend James Hunt..