Established in our country for sixty years, Taylor Wimpey España is a subsidiary of Taylor Wimpey PLC, a listed multinational real estate developer based in the United Kingdom. This means seriousness and solvency in all the promotions it develops, and total security for the buyer of its homes.
Specializing in residential tourism, this leading company operates in our country on the Costa del Sol, Mallorca and the Costa Blanca. Its director in Andalusia, Ignacio Oslé, talks in this interview about the strength of the company on the Costa del Sol.
-What real estate developments is Taylor Wimpey currently developing linked to golf courses in Costa del Sol?
-Right now we are promoting a project of 90 apartments overlooking Los Arqueros Golf called Botanic; another project, Le Caprice, of 14 very exclusive apartments in La Quinta Golf with spectacular views of the 3rd hole; two more projects, called Green Golf, of apartments and townhouses in Estepona Golf, and finally a large real estate project of more than a thousand homes, which we are going to develop in La Cala Golf Resort, in Mijas. We currently have a project there called Grand View, with 60 apartments, and another one called Natura, with townhouses.
-How many homes do you currently have under construction on the Costa del Sol?
-In development I estimate that we will have about six hundred active, finalizing planning and in full development.
-Do you consider that real estate development is essential for the profitability of a golf course, or could the course be maintained exclusively with the income from green fees?
Yes, they can be profitable on their own, but what happens is that, from the time the golf course is built until it is put on the market, there is a period of between five and ten years in which it needs extra economic support to amortize the investment, and normally that moment is loss-making. Then, with good management, a good team and fine-tuning costs, a golf course can become a profitable business on its own.
-The Costa del Sol is experiencing a new period of booming real estate market. How are sales going and what type of clientele, by nationality, predominates among buyers?
Actually, there has been a very large increase in off-plan sales in the last three years. At first we were almost alone in the market and we were the first witnesses of this new reality. Right now, the English are still the priority client despite the Brexit, even this year they have recovered again, because we had a loss of almost 20 percent last year, but people now have a certain confidence in their domestic economy and therefore they are coming back to buy houses from us. The next client is the Scandinavian, followed by the Belgian and the Russian, and then we have an incredible melting pot of nationalities, which is a unique phenomenon in Spain that is not repeated in other markets such as Costa Blanca or Mallorca, where it is more of a British and Russian client. Here, on the other hand, it is a multinational client, and that is what allows us to be a unique residential tourist destination in the world.
-Is the Spaniard still a minority client as a buyer of homes linked to golf courses?
-It is still a minority, and on the Costa del Sol we have not really noticed yet that the Spaniard is buying a second home. I think that is going to be the challenge in the next five years: for that client to come back, to have the economic capacity and to start buying homes on golf courses.
-Does a home have added value because it is on a golf course?
-No doubt. They are homes that maintain their value even in periods of real estate crisis in economic cycles. They also have a potential rental value for golf players, which is important, and also the surroundings do not deteriorate, that is, golf courses, which are like a large garden, are very well maintained, as well as safe…. It should also be noted that it is a very dynamic market, that clients buy and sell homes on golf courses because they are in high demand and therefore have a high added value.
-Are only golfers buying homes next to a golf course or are there also those who don’t play but like to have a large garden in front of their property?
-According to our statistics and our experience as golf course managers in the past, we can say that only fifteen percent of those who have purchased homes from us in the last ten years were purely golfers. They have sought the golf environment as a place of residence for the security it gives them, for the quality of its fairways, for having a clubhouse, for feeling surrounded by a community with a certain economic and leisure status… And then yes, little by little they have become entangled with golf. Here on the Costa del Sol, the photo that the foreign client is looking for is the large golf garden and the sea views with Gibraltar in the background: it is the El Dorado of the home that every client aspires to here.
-In recent times, both rental and sales prices have been rising considerably on the Costa del Sol. Do you think we could run the risk of suffering a real estate bubble again?
-For there to be a real estate bubble, the main thing would be for there to be a large stock of unsold homes: that is the critical factor. Therefore, we cannot speak of a real estate bubble in the short term. What we can say about the second home market on the Costa del Sol, and in Madrid and other cities where there is more demand, is that we are reaching a period of maturity in the sector where prices have already risen and I do not think they will rise much more, although construction costs are rising, margins are getting tighter… in short, now is the time for the developer with a very good quality of management and a lot of financial lung to have a small margin in this business and to manage time, cost and profitability very well.
-Taylor Wimpey has owned a golf course on the Costa del Sol, Los Arqueros. Does the company plan to build or acquire one in the near future?
-We are a residential developer and we have naturally dedicated ourselves to building houses. We have already developed several golf courses, but I think that in the near future we are going to focus only on residential tourism itself.
Leave a Reply