Episode 48: Interview with Stacy Viva

Scott: Sweet Home Santa Barbara, where the skies are so blue. Sweet Home Santa Barbara, what’s worked for me can work for you.

Jonathan Robinson: Welcome back friends to Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m your co-host Jonathan Robinson, and I’m with my co-host friend and realtor.

Scott Williams: Scott Williams.

Jonathan: I love these types of podcasts today because I always learn so much. We have a guest Stacy Viva. Before I introduce her, let me tell you that she’s an expert on buying property in Spain, one of my favorite countries. I give you a little bit of background about Stacy. She’s a professional with a background as a real estate agent in Orange County. Currently holds the position of relocation director at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Spain, and she has a decade of residency in Spain, and Stacy manages property transactions for American clients, utilizing her comprehensive understanding of both the Spanish and US real estate markets. Stacy acts as a liaison connecting clients with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Agents and various service providers to ensure a smooth and efficient property acquisition process.

That’s a mouthful. Sounds like you have a lot of experience. Stacy, looking forward to asking you some questions. I’m wondering if you can first share some insights into the current trends shaping the real estate landscape in Spain, especially considering any recent economic or regulatory changes happening there.

Stacy: Great. First of all thank you so much Scott and Jonathan for having me on your podcast today. This is exciting. I’m speaking from Madrid. Current trends, well, first what’s most interesting is Spain’s new buyer is the American buyer. We’ve always been appealing to the English, to the French, to the German, but since 2019 and actually the first 6 months of 2019 to the first 6 months of 2022, there’s been an increase of 88% in real estate purchases from the American buyer, and that’s actually quoted from the New York Times in 2023, so we’ve just seen an influx of American buyers purchasing in Spain and…

Jonathan: Yeah having spent a few weeks there last year. I can understand why. I think it’s kind of like the most underrated European country. The weather’s great. The people are nice. Everything kind of works nicely, so I understand that influx.

Stacy: Exactly. We’re known for lifestyle, and again the Americans haven’t known that. The English have, the French have the German have for years, but the Americans now know it, and we were also the number 1 tourist destination in the world in 2023. We surpassed France, and of those eighty four million tourists that came to visit us, the ones that came from the us, we had a jump of 40% from over 2022 so it’s been really interesting. A couple things driving that trend, 1, is lifestyle and affordability. Also the strong dollar. For example today the dollars at 1.08 for 1 euro, our interest rates are lower here. Our fixed interest rate here is about 4%, so all these things have been very favorable for the American buyer.

Scott: Stacy, something we’ve noticed in Santa Barbara, a big tourist destination is in the last year, suddenly everybody wanted to go to Europe instead of come to Santa Barbara, which we like went oh.

Stacy: Yeah. Well, Santa Barbara is beautiful as well. I love Santa Barbara. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a little more expensive than some areas in Spain.

Jonathan: That’s true. Well, what are some of the popular neighborhoods or areas in Spain, and where are people buying and what should people be keeping an eye on?

Stacy: We’re actually seeing a trend in investors and actually buyers buying properties for rental income. Especially in major cities and tourist frequent areas, beach areas, but starting with cities for example Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, these are all cities with amenities, modern amenities. They have international schools, they have language programs. They have excellent gastronomy. They’re a hub for architecture, art, museums. They have wonderful transportation. All of those cities are connected to a high speed train, as well as connections from the rest of Spain. They have direct flights. United just opened up a direct flight from New York to Malaga last year because of the demand, and they’re also big employment hubs.

For example in Barcelona and Madrid, we have a number of companies that have headquarters there, such as Amazon, Amadeus, Google, Netflix, and Malaga now is known as the Silicon Valley of Europe, and yeah it’s got a technological park and it has over six hundred multinationals there, so the investors know this, so there’s a lot of demand because a lot of people are coming over here to work and to play, and we’re also seeing it in the resort areas because areas like Marbella, Palm de Mallorca, they have all year tourists, so they’re high tourist areas so apartments are always rented.

Scott: Stacy, I know because I ride an exercise bike and one of my choices is to ride my bike. The video is along the beaches in Spain, and I’ve never visited those beaches except every morning I go visit them. It’s really a lot of fun and like amazing, so you have amazing beaches.

Stacy: We have eighteen hundred miles of beach in this country, unlike Portugal because everybody always compares us with Portugal, and Portugal’s a wonderful country but we have much more coastline than Portugal, and we also have the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. We have both when Portugal just has the Atlantic.

Jonathan: Okay. Let me buy a couple dozen houses there, it looks good. Spain also has all these different landscapes and climates, and how do the regional variations impact the type of properties available? And is there anything buyers should consider when choosing a location based on climate?

Stacy: Well now first of all, Spain has an excellent overall Mediterranean climate. We have pretty close to three hundred days of sunshine. I’m from Los Angeles and the temperature, I’m in Madrid, it doesn’t change that much. Madrid, for example, we have our 4 seasons but they’re mild. They’re very mild. Just like Los Angeles or Santa Barbara. It doesn’t get too cold, it doesn’t get too hot, and then we have other regions that have microclimates. For example, Costa Blanca which is known as the White Coast, they have three hundred days of warm temperatures, and they have their own microclimate. Marbella Malaga also have their own microclimate.

They typically have mild and warm weather due to the influences of the sea and the mountains, so they experience warm winters and cool summers, and then the Balearic Islands summer there is generally hot and dry, and in the winter it’s typically cold and wet, so we do have variations in the country but overall we have so much sunshine and blue sky. That’s one of the reasons why I live here, because it’s similar to California, very similar in climate.

Scott: You mentioned climate Balearic islands. Where are those?

Stacy: If you’re familiar, they’re about thirty minutes from Costa Brava, which is close to Barcelona. You’ve got Abitha, Menorca, Majorca, and Formentera. These are 4 beautiful islands. They’re also close to another office that we have in Denia. From Barcelona they’re a thirty minute flight, and from Denia it’s a thirty minute ferry to those islands.

Jonathan: Are there any special real estate processes or legal challenges that international buyers have to deal with? I know if you’re buying something in Central America or Mexico, there’s various laws you have to be very familiar with. How easy is it to buy real estate in Spain?

Stacy: Bueno, it’s kind of a Spanish jungle here, it actually makes the US look efficient in terms of buying property, and I could say that because I was an agent, I sold in Orange County. Here it’s a Spanish jungle, there’s no title companies, there’s no escrow companies, there’s no licensing requirements. There’s no disclosures so it’s literally a seller’s market. Buyer beware. That being said, it’s important to work with a reputable company especially if you’re from afar. I’ve experienced this, I’ve bought a couple of properties here and I’ve learned, and what we’ve done here at Berkshire Spain is we’ve put processes and protocols in place to ensure a seamless transaction, so we we’re flushing out criteria. We’re on top of the transaction.

We are checking title, we’re doing due diligence on the property, we’re making sure everything’s coordinated with the bank. These are all things that can go wrong, and we are at deed signing, because here there is a deed. It’s fideicomiso in Mexico that actually you own the property, it’s safe, but all these things you need to be well advised, so what we’ve done here is we’ve put together a package, which is a buyer’s peace of mind package and it helps both on advising on the real estate transaction, as well as helping on legal tax healthcare questions, because when you’re making an international move or even buying a second home, you still have to consider how is it going to impact you tax wise for example, so we have a network of providers that have been vetted by us that speak to our clients.

We give them choice obviously so they can compare and contrast both information and costs, but it’s very useful. I know because when I came over here, this is something that I would’ve liked to have when I was buying property, and I didn’t. I did eventually. I found it on my own but it’s something that’s very nice to have and makes the transition a lot smoother.

Scott: I can imagine Stacy, people, when they come to Santa Barbara from outer area a relatively popular thing to do, is to buy a piece of real estate that is put out on Airbnb or VRBO, that one uses for oneself for certain weeks and months out of the year, and then it develops an income flow to maybe even pay for that investment on the cash flow of it. Anything similar to that in your territory?

Stacy: Yeah. Actually that’s a great question, Scott. Thank you for asking that. Actually here in Madrid where I am, we have a sister company called Luxury Rentals Madrid, and what they do is it is like a high-end luxury platform Airbnb, but a high-end luxury platform that basically manages properties for people. Americans for example, they come, they want to buy a property and use it a few times a year but then they want to rent it. They want to rent it out, and so what Luxury Rentals Madrid does is they take charge of the cleaning, the maintenance, the upkeep. If something breaks, it’s being replaced, all these different services they do, and the buyer or the investor gets to use their property and then gets rental income.

It basically pays for the property and or makes money, but something else that I think is really important is not only can they earn income with Luxury Rentals Madrid, also it’s a property that’s being occupied, because as you know today, if properties are unoccupied they’re exposed. Maybe it’s always good to have somebody overseeing your property especially if it’s millions of miles away, even more so.

Jonathan: I’m curious, Stacy, how much is property in Spain compared to say California which is of course ridiculous, but are people getting a lot for their money or prices been increasing so much that that’s not the case anymore?

Stacy: That’s a good question. That’s a very good question. The property market has gone up here. I’ve been here 10 years and it has gone up since the pandemic. I think it’s really gone up because we’ve been discovered. It’s still more reasonable than California, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Orange County, for example. One thing that is a big difference is the property tax. For example and I’m going to throw out an example, a property, for example in Marbella, a nice luxury house, say a 5 bedroom, 5 bath home, recently remodeled, and it has a solarium. It’s about four thousand eight hundred square feet, seven hundred square foot terrace. That has an ocean view. It is about 2,000,800 euros, which is today’s terms about $3 million. The property tax on that property, guess how much it is?

Scott: Well, here it’s going to be $30,000 a year.

Stcay: Okay. If you could even get it there. I think that property there is going to be much more.

Scott: It would more than 3 million. Yes.

Stacy: It would be more than 3 million. Exactly. The annual tax on that property is $3,500 a year. 3,500, so the properties compared to other luxury type areas like Montecito, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, the properties are less but the taxes, they’re much less. I had a home in Orange County and I was paying more tax a year and my house was not worth near this amount.

Jonathan: Yeah. That’s a nice break.

Scott: Marbella is a beach community. Yes?

Stacy: Yeah. Marbella is in the south. It’s a beach community. It’s kind of known. It’s known for the jet setter. It used to be known for the jet setter where you have exclusive yachts, boutique shops, kind of the Spain’s Monaco, Central pe[?]. Exactly, but now what we’re seeing, we’re seeing a lot more long-term residents there that are staying, and they’re staying because there’s very good international schools there, and there’s golf. The Costa Del Sol is also known as Costa Del Golf because there’s so many golf courses down there in Marbella.

Jonathan: I noticed because I don’t really speak Spanish, that I thought more people would be speaking English than they do. What is the percentage of people that might speak English in Spain?

Stacy: Bueno. I think today, I don’t know what those percentages are. When I came 10 years ago, very few people spoke English, and now today, the younger generation all speak English. They speak perfect English, and now we have so many international people, people from all over and so I’m hearing English everywhere now, and it’s funny because today I did an exercise class right down the street here, and they did it in English, and I thought, this is so funny. This is the first time they’ve ever done this in English.

Jonathan: Interesting.

Scott: I had an experience somewhat like that in a group. This was in Italy recently, and there was eighty people from around the world at this gathering and from twenty different countries, and the thing that was common was English. It was the easiest language for the eighty of us to fall into, so in any kind of larger group setting like that, it’s the lingua franca. It’s the most common international language.

Stacy: That’s right, and in the restaurants I would say that they have menus in English, that they speak English. We’ve come a long way from 10 years ago, I would say.

Jonathan: Yeah. I noticed in the restaurants in America, waiters and waitresses generally try to get you out of the restaurant. In Spain you could spend your entire afternoon there with no problem.

Stacy: Yeah. That’s a big difference between the US and Spain. It’s funny, my mother would say, ‘Gosh, there are leisurely lunches here. They have these leisurely lunches and sometimes they’re drinking wine and do they go back to work?” And sometimes they go back to work. I guess sometimes they don’t. On Fridays they don’t and some still take siestas, so this is a country where they really live. Work is secondary, it’s not like the states that we’re so driven to produce consumption. No, this is a different lifestyle.

Scott: Stacy, what happened through the pandemic with real estate in Spain?

Stacy: Bueno. First of all, I don’t know if you remember, but Spain, we had one of the most intense lockdowns I was actually here. It was the longest. We shut down for ninety days. We couldn’t even go outside, and then after we boomed. We opened up and we were probably one of the European countries more open, and we leapfrogged, and what happened was that I think after the pandemic Spain was discovered. Everybody discovered Spain and still they keep discovering it, and what’s interesting is that there was a survey that Forbes reported last year, November, 2023. They surveyed, actually it was inner nations, which is the largest expat community in the world with twelve thousand experts. They surveyed them to see what were the best cities to live and work in the world.

Spain came up, the cities. Their rankings were, they came up number 1, 2, 3, 6, and 13, so what were those? Number 1 was Malaga, best city to live in the world. Number 2 was Alicante. Number 3 was Valencia. Number 6 was Madrid, and number thirteen was Barcelona, so we took 5 of the top rankings in the top twenty, and this was last year, so I think we became discovered. We got discovered after the pandemic, and then we leapfrogged, and I will say one thing which I think is really important. Part of this and I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this, is that we have something called the golden visa, which is if you purchase a property over a half a million euros, you can get residency.

Which is incredible. When I came over 10 years ago that was not an option for me, and it’s not easy for Americans to stay past ninety days because you need a visa, but now this visa which is tied to the real estate, is you can come over here and you can have your second home. You don’t have to but you have residency if you want, so apart from the economics, this is also a big draw I think for Americans today.

Jonathan: Well, let’s use that half a million. You’d mentioned $3 million properties, and some of our listeners won’t be able to consider $3 million properties, but a $500,000 property might sound like, well, what is that or what’s near that? What does that amount to? What is it?

Stacy: Bueno. Typically in the cities, these cities that I’ve mentioned, Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, you’re typically to get a nice 2 bedroom in a nice area. Say you want a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, you’re probably looking at maybe 700, 800,000 there because 500,000 you may be lucky.

Scott: Is that a house or a condominium?

Stacy: Bueon. That’s an apartment, but here in the cities, typically we live in apartments. I’ve never lived in an apartment in my life until I came to Madrid because in the city there’s houses too, but they’re outside of Madrid, a little bit outside. Typically you have apartments and they’re nice size apartments as well, so I would say you’re probably looking as a nice apartment in a good area, you’re probably looking at least 6, 700,000. Like for example, I’m looking at an apartment today and maybe another apartment for myself for maybe an investment. It’s in a good area. It’s 650,000. It’s 2 bedroom, 2 bath, and about seventy five meters, so it’s a little less than a thousand square feet, a little less than the square feet.

Jonathan: Now is a typical apartment in a city something that can be rented as a short-term rental or not?

Stacy: Yeah. Well, for example the Luxury Rental Madrid, the platform that I told you, they typically have rentals that aren’t like Airbnbs that are maybe 1 or 2 days. They’re more 3 to 4 weeks rentals. The Airbnb rental market is more challenging because you need a permit and they’re not giving permits anymore, and I’m talking for Madrid strictly right now, but for properties that are 3 or 4 weeks, that midterm rental or maybe even longer, you can still do that. We are managing over three hundred properties today for clients. Again, Americans that bought property here, they come a couple times a year and then want somebody to manage it, and that’s what Luxury Rentals Madrid does.

Jonathan: Is there anything that we’re missing asking you, Stacy, that is important to go over?

Stacy: Oh, okay. Well, let’s see. One thing is important. I think this always seems to come up, as I mentioned you can get residency with the golden visa. Taxes, 1 important number I always tell people is a hundred and eighty three days. What is that? If you are in Spain more than a hundred and eighty three days, you are a fiscal resident. That means you pay taxes here, so these are things that again, we have these conversations. You may not want to pay taxes here, you may want to pay in your country, so you would stay less than a hundred and eighty three days for example, and obviously we go deeper because that’s within a year. Can you put it over a couple, over 2 years. When I talk to families, for example, I have conversations every day with Americans, some want to have international schooling experience for their children, but they don’t want to be fiscal residents.

We talk about, okay, what does that look like? How can they do the school term and still not be a fiscal resident, and we also have discussions about visas because maybe they want to come over and rent and they don’t want to buy, so what’s the best visa for them as well, and again I have this much information because I’m speaking to these attorneys and accountants every day but to go deeper, the client is speaking directly to the accountant or the attorney because each situation is different.

Jonathan: Any last questions, Scott?

Scott: Yeah. If you’re American and you’re taking your first look at Spain, maybe you vacation there along the way a time or 2, what do you think would be the best way to approach Spain as a potential investment? What are the first things you would tick off for them to run through their minds?

Stacy: Bueno. As an investment I guess first of all is safety. Obviously you want your investment to be safe and you want to invest in a safe country, right? Spain is safe. We don’t have guns here, you can walk freely. I also if I’m going to invest, I want a city that has amenities, modern day amenities, so as I mentioned some of them prior that bring in tourists. Obviously if you’re going to invest, you want foot traffic, you want people coming and visiting those cities or vacationing, and Spain we live off hospitality. That’s one of our big I guess imports, is hospitality. As I said we were number 1 tourist country in the world, so what happens? Oftentimes people come over here, they travel the country, they see how diverse it is, how beautiful it is.

They fall in love with it, and then they decide, you know what? I think I want to go back and invest, or I want to retire. This is what happened to me. I came and I fell in love with the country and I’ve been here now 10 years and I thought I was going to go back, so Spain it’s a lifestyle play. We’re not just an investment play. Investment play, yes, but I owned California real estate before and those returns, you’re not going to get those returns here. You’re both in very nice areas of California, you’ve seen how the market has skyrocketed there, and I think different than the rest of the country. We’ve had amazing years there. We have appreciation here too but it’s not California real estate.

That said, it’s not the same pricing as California either as real estate, and what I find is I talk to families and for example, the property I told you in Marbella, the house in Marbella, it’s an expensive property. It’s a luxury property but somebody that is comparing that to Malibu or Santa Barbara or Newport Coast, you can’t touch that. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Scott: That’s for sure true. You described a 7, 10, $12 million property here.

Stcay: With higher property taxes, with…

Scott: Yes.

Jonathan: Yeah. That would get you in the end too. Yeah, and one thing I noticed traveling in Spain is that things just kind of work, there’s not homeless people all around. There’s not a lot of drug acts, it’s nice, as you said it’s a lifestyle choice and I could see why it’s popular. Been very informative Stacy, how can people get a hold of you if they’re interested in getting in touch?

Stacy: Well, I think that you have my contact information. Scott has it, you can always go through Scott, and my email is SV like Stacy Viva, sv@bhhsspain.com. That’s my direct email, and I work directly with Scott, so go through Scott and Scott and I speak and I’m happy to help how I can.

Scott: Well, Stacy, I think that you we’ll probably have somebody listening here who wants to take you up on that, so SV, Viva?

Jonathan: S as in Stacy, SV as in Viva, sv@bhhsspain.com.

Scott: Okay. Great.

Jonathan: Very informative, Stacy. Really appreciate that and we appreciate our listeners to hopefully come back to Sweet Homes Santa Barbara, and what’s the best way people reach you, Scott?

Scott: I’m Scott at scottwilliams.com, and I would be pleased to get an email from you.

Jonathan: I’m Jonathan, I don’t want any more emails.

Stacy: Thank you so much to both of you. A big thank you.

Jonathan: Thank our listeners. We’ll catch you next time at Sweet Home Santa Barbara.

Scott: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite app. If you know someone preparing to sell their home, please tell them about the podcast. Visit scottwilliams.com to contact me and download the 2 free E-booklets. Is My House Saleable Now and How Not To Buy a Money Pit? Thank you for listening.

[END]