Thanks to Kevin Brass for linking to this article on buying and selling property. Far from being specific to the UK property market, these are some great tips for buyers and sellers to both get what they want in the Spanish property market.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com

Buying?

1. Can you pay for it? - Show the seller that you have the money to complete the purchase.
2. Can you maintain it? - Is this an investment or will it be your home? The longer you anticipate keeping the property, the more flexible you can be on price.
3. Are you also selling? - Many sellers still haven't grasped the idea that their own homes are worth less even as they are simultaneously putting greatly reduced offers on other properties.
4. What do you want from the property? - Unless the property ticks all the boxes - it is on the best street, sensibly valued and utterly flawless - there should be room for negotiation.
5. How low should you go? - Create the impression that you'll make an offer but then do nothing for a while. Establish yourself as a good buyer and let the agent get excited.
6. Time your offer - Find out if the seller has any big dates coming up. Does the owner need to move schools, or start a new job?
7. Woo your seller - Offer low but be prepared to accommodate the seller in other ways such as fitting in with his time frame.
8. Should you gazunder? - Assuming the survey has not thrown up any horrors, but the conveyance has taken a long time to reach exchange - several months - it might be worth revising an offer down slightly.
9. If you gazunder .. - If you do decide to drop your initial offer, make sure that you have reasons prepared in order to justify this and give the vendor's agent time to negotiate with other people in the chain to see if the pain can be shared.
10. Be ready - Make sure you really are ready to go ahead. The longer vendors have to think about it, the more likely they are to turn down offers.

Selling?

1. The big drop - Inching the price down doesn't work. Make a statement to attract new people and create competition. Buyers must believe that if they wait months, the house might not be there.
2. Don't go too low - The big drop should be carefully calculated. Remember that buyers are still going to want to negotiate, so you need to factor this in.
3. Research your area - Research what has sold and gone under offer in the neighbourhood recently. A best in class property won't need so dramatic an adjustment as commodity products, such as a new build flat or a terrace house.
4. It's all relative - If you're buying and selling in the same marketplace, what matters is the price difference.
5. Accept there are no miracles - If the property is on a second-rate street or there are things wrong with it, undercutting the price won't be enough in the current market.
6. Kerb appeal - Given that there are many properties on the market, outstanding condition can set one apart from the other. Time spent on a coat of paint and thorough clean is not time wasted.
7. Clever marketing - Last year, what might have sold as a building plot for a large house might this year appeal more to a buyer looking for extra space for stables or workshops.
8. Don't look a gift horse .. - An estate agent had an offer of £500,000 for a property on the market for £550,000, the vendor said no and in the end the flat was repossessed. It is now on for £375,000.
9. Auctions? - Going to auction is an alternative to slashing the price - so long as you are prepared to accept its market value on the day.
10. Reasons to be cheerful - Some of us still have faith in bricks and mortar. People like putting their money into something tangible. In the prime and mainstream markets, sensible prices are enticing buyers.

A story reported by Reuters gives us an insight into how long commercial lenders and borrowers believe the credit crunch will last in Spain.

The article deals with how Reyal Urbis, one of Spain's largest developers, has managed to secure additional funding:

"Spanish real estate company Reyal Urbis said on Monday it had reached a deal with creditors to refinance debt of 3.006 billion euros. In a statement to the stock exchange regulator, the firm said it had obtained two new credit lines which gave the company 'the necessary liquidity for its operative management'."

"Under the new financing terms, the company has postponed its first payment on the debt until October 2011 and signed up to twice-yearly payments after that date until 2015. In 2015, it will have to pay off the remaining 40 percent of the debt."

This tells us that Reyal anticipate being in a position to make substantial debt repayments in 2011 and to resolve the debt completely by 2015. In order for them to be in a position to do so, the company would need to be experiencing an increased volume of property sales by 2011 - probably on the back of stronger sales in 2010.

This indicates that the very bottom of the market is likely to be experienced between now and sometime in 2009, because for Reyal Urbis to make property sales, a fair chunk of the 1 million excess properties floating around the market will need to have already been sold.

The lenders were not named in the article, but whoever they are, they're betting the thick end of 3 Billion Euros on Reyal's business plan and sales forecasts. To my knowledge, this is the first time that a Spanish property company has announced the terms of a successful debt renegotiation - and the first time the public gets an insight into when the Spanish property market is likely to pick up - according to those with the highest stakes in play.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com

Low-cost airline Ryanair launches new flights to the Spanish archipelago from Liverpool and Birmingham. The property market on the Canary Islands may be boosted with the announcement of new flights from the UK to the archipelago by low-cost airline Ryanair.

Liverpool John Lennon Airport will be launching flights next month from the city to Tenerife and Fuerteventura, with the budget carrier.

Meanwhile Ryanair has also said it will be starting a new service to Fuerteventura from Birmingham airport this winter.

John Pakey, the deputy chief executive of Liverpool John Lennon Airport's owners Peel Airports Group, told Property Showrooms, he expected the flights, part of a package of seven new Ryanair services, would be welcomed by the public. especially those to the Canary Islands for people in search of some winter sun.

The new flights will also provide better access to the the island for those who own, or would like to own property there, and should also help to increase the number of tourists for buy-to-let investors.

This news comes just a few weeks after Monarch announced it too would be introducing extra flights to the Canary Islands this winter. As Homes Worldwide reported earlier this month weekly flights to Lanzarote have been added from London Gatwick and to Tenerife from Manchester.

The local authorities have invested a lot of money to improve the Canary islands over the last few years, adding upmarket resorts and marinas, as well as a huge investment into golf tourism, which brings in many people to the archipelago during the winter months.

The islands have undergone a transformation from cheap package holiday resorts to a location for the discerning traveller.

For the last three decades the Canaries have been popular with British tourists seeking winter sun, but unfortunately with mass popularity came mass construction of hotels, which were often built quickly and cheaply and started to give many resorts the feel of a concrete jungle.

Tenerife has probably undergone the most dramatic transformation, from a popular holiday hotspot to an exclusive lifestyle destination. Ugly buildings that were once constructed in record quick time to accommodate the increasing numbers of overseas visitors are now being pulled down, and sympathetic and stunning architecture is taking their place.

It has also been announced recently that Puerto del Carmen, the main resort on Lanzarote, is also due to get a facelift. The multi-million Euro project will transform the resort with the introduction of a modern marina, with moorings for luxury yachts, and the opening of a new golf course next year, which is only the second on the island. Bars, shops and restaurants along the beachfront strip are also due to get a facelift to bring them up-to-date.

In a separate announcement, Ryanair also announced a new service to Fuerteventura from Birmingham.

All these improvements should help to boost the property market on these popular Spanish islands.

Story from Homes Worldwide

No fewer than three of this week's news articles were written by Mark Stucklin of Spanish Property Insight. In my opinion, Mark is the best-informed, most level-headed commentator on the Spanish property market today. We'll continue to feature a selection of Mark's writings, but to see all of his commentary, I recommend you bookmark his blog.

By the way, when and if Mark reads this, it will be news to him too. This is simply my personal recommendation, and has nothing to do with any commercial relationship or endorsement.

My apologies if you were denied access to Kyero.com during the small hours of Wednesday morning last week. We had a huge upgrade schedule to complete and, even though we started at midnight, the site didn't go live again until almost 9am.

The good news is that we also launched a raft of new functionality to help estate agents list properties more fully, more easily. Over time, this means you should find that properties listed on Kyero.com are more complete and more informative. It also means you'll see less and less properties which are incompletely or inaccurately featured.

An example of this is that we're now displaying build and plot size of properties (where they are known), and we'll soon be adding filters so that you can refine your property search by these parameters too.

Another example is a system we have developed to find and remove those pesky property photos which state that the property has no photos. We'll be testing and tweaking this to make sure it's doing its job without being over zealous!

Last, if English isn't your mother-tongue, we also made it easier for estate agents to describe properties in each of the 9 languages available on Kyero.com.

We recognise that in the current market conditions, the quality of property listings is more important than ever. We'll be stepping-up our efforts to ensure that your Spanish property search is as painless and fruitful as possible.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com