If it wasn’t bad enough that a global credit crunch, followed by a UK minor banking wobble followed by…do I need to go on..then the property market in Spain is sitting at the bar listening to John Lee Hooker supping on its twentieth shot Jonny Black.

Properties in Spain have had a rough ride over the past three years following a five year ascendency that saw prices rise by 300 - 400 %. A correction most would say in hindsight, was inevitable. But the length of time that the market has now been ’sitting at the bar’ could never have been predicted. One global issue after another has piled on the misery to the point that nothing seems to suprise any more.

The latest nail in the proverbial has been the ascendancy in the value of the Euro, which combined with ever decreasing strength in the dollar has sent the more important rate against the pound close to a high. Gone are those sceptics that professed the demise of the new currency a few years ago when it was launched.

The main effect to the Spanish property market has been to see the drop in villa prices that has occurred over the past twelve months to create a bounce in the market to have been nullified. The increases that were seen in interest in January have not materialised into purchases as investors and holiday home buyers wait for their pound to give them back the purchasing power that they had expected when they did their original calculations on moving to the sun.

In a month or two things will only get worse. With millions of brits booking their summer vacations on the continent, the months of may to September are historically strong for the Euro as demand for the currency deals with the foreign exchange needs of the public.

Some good news is required to get things going again globally…lets hope it happens before November.

I say November because the election of a new president…whomever they choose, normally produces a bounce in the step of the largest economy in the world and whose ripple effect may help all things globally. Otherwise the Spanish market may stay suffering with a summer of more than just blue skies!