A large new tourist and residential complex in the town of Casares on the western end of the Costa, with about 800 apartments surrounding a central 1.5 hectares is being undertaken by the Crystal Lagoon company. This project is similar to the luxury resort that the company has just opened in Egypt.
A project like this may have sounded almost like science fiction not so long ago, when the real estate business had hit rock bottom. The fact is that international real estate investors have chosen Malaga yet again. The report “Housing in Costa del Sol 2015”, prepared by TINSA, placed the Costa del Sol alongside the Balearic Islands at the top of the list of the areas of vacation homes that have recovered.
José Antonio Pérez, director of the Institute of Business Practice and Real Estate professor, acknowledges that Malaga province, mainly the coastal area, is a “booming” and mentioned such indicators as visas or increasing sales on housing plans. Mr. Pérez even mentioned “a discreet waiting list” of customers with unique requirements not covered by current stock. And “specially with the highest growth rate of sales of second hand homes and the correction of the upward trend in prices, according to the XXII edition of the Real Estate Pulsometer and the operations closed by the Mar Real Estate network”, he added.
The situation has changed so much that even SAREB (Management Company of Assets from the Banking Restructuring) created to take care of those “toxic assets” that nobody wanted, ventures to build in grounds purchased after the bubble burst. The so-called “bad bank” announced that they will be building 783 homes in 13 different project all over Spain. Málaga will get three new projects totaling 150 homes.
Solvia, the real estate group of Banco Sabadell, will start two projects. One will consist of 54 homes near the old Tabacalera ( in the corner Concejal Muñoz and Pacifico streets) and another thirty in Teresa de Azpiazu y Paul street, near Parque del Oeste. The third and largest housing group will be built in Teatinos (Avenue of Jorge Luis Borges) and will manage Altamira, controlled by the American group Apollo. Sources from SAREB said, “it was worth developing the area”.
An 800-unit apartment complex with a central lagoon will be built in Casares. SAREB will be building 150 flats in three groups in Málaga City.
The Casares building project will be developed in stages in an area where there are nearly one hundred apartments since 2009. Sebastián Pillado, director of Cystal Lagoon in Europe has said that they want to show that “projects that have been on hold without any sales have become active and dynamic again, as shown in other resort areas all over the world”.
