Buying in Barcelona: Londoners love the coastal city for its renovated flats from £200k, which make great holiday homes or investments
Cosmopolitan Barcelona, with its sublime restaurants and winning architectural history, is the perfect holiday home location for so many reasons.
It has a superyacht marina, wonderfully informal beach bars and easy access by air, sea and high-speed rail. More than 27 million travellers passed through the city last year, about a quarter of all visitors to Spain.
“Just under half of our sales last year were new or newly renovated homes,” says Joanna Papis of Lucas Fox Barcelona. “Our portfolio of new homes are mainly in the central areas of Eixample, the Old Town and Poblenou, all districts popular with overseas investors who are increasingly attracted by rental yields of up to 5.5 per cent.”
What can a budget of about £450,000 buy in Barcelona?
POBLENOU: THE BEACH AREA
The Barcelona Olympics in 1992 began the regeneration of Poblenou and today this once-abandoned industrial area offers an interesting lifestyle choice.
Former textile warehouses provide loftstyle homes, while an on-trend tech scene called 22@Barcelona is developing, and the location — five minutes’ drive from the city centre and beside the city beaches — is popular. The mix of classic modernist buildings in the oldest district, red-brick factories and high-rise glass towers is intriguing.
A well-renovated three-bedroom loft flat in a classical building near the beach with good transport links to the city is £483,800 through Lucas Fox. A roomy 2,281sq ft, the apartment features woodblock floors and high ceilings.
POBLE SEC: A NEW DESTINATION
The value is even better in Poble Sec towards the Montjuïc hills. Slightly off the usual tourist route yet still within walking distance of the city centre, the port and the beach, Poble Sec has intimate tapas bars, lively bodegas and green parks.
For £374,500 you could buy a three-bedroom, 1,044sq ft corner flat between two Metro stations through Lucas Fox.
Modern and light, this home retains classical features including mosaic tiles and beamed ceilings. A compact one-bedroom flat, artfully modernised with exposed brick, is £207,800 and could provide five per cent rental yield as well as a weekend retreat, says Lucas Fox.
EIXAMPLE: THE ESTABLISHED CENTRE
Built on a strict grid system in the 19th and 20th centuries as a link between the narrow tangle of streets in the Old Town and quieter villages towards Barcelona’s hills, Eixample has wide boulevards and classical buildings backing on to mammoth garden squares.
This area is high on the wish list of city-smart locals, an elegant and accessible location close to the most fashionable shops and restaurants and home to the chief works of famed Catalan modernist architect, Antoni Gaudí.
A modern two-bedroom flat, an easy lock-up-and-leave second home, in a carefully restored classical Eixample building with lift and substantial terrace is £446,000 through Cluttons.