Hello all,

Australian investor- Iwent on an inspection trip for a couple of days to see Jardin Des Los Reyes about 6/8 weeks ago and took my hubbie with me!

MC- The people in charge of the development put us up in a hotel in Alicante, gave us a presentation and took us to the site and the local town of Albacete, Almansa!

The offer seems to good to be true at first but you then really need to look at whats happening in spains economy to determine what lies ahead.

We chose not to go ahead in the end although we initially reserved a plot of land before we went on the inspection trip!

The site was beautiful, but no different to any other piece of land in spain, also its practically in the middle of no-where and about 45mins from alicante!

The reasons we chose not to persue it is because of the uncertainties of the spanish economy for the future!
Spain is going into serious decline because of: Over supply of property, over hyped prices, land and government corruption issues and with all the new emerging cheaper and more attractive property markets in other countries that are now available!
People are seriously struggling to sell property and land at the moment because the economy is far from doing as well as it was before!
Also I am half spanish and still have relatives in spain who have also advised me to steer clear because of the issues over there-so it takes alot for me to admit these issues, but they are there and are only going to get alot worse, Im afraid!!!

The package they offer at the price sounds great....BUT You have to take into consideration seriously what your exit strategy is going to be!
As I know they give you estimated time frames for certain stages of planning etc-but realistically youll be sitting on land for at least 4-5 years before they even start clearing the land or see a single builder on site!! And thats provided they get the planning consents!!

We had planned to hold on until next year or 2009 when they presumed the outlined planning consent would come through-then try and sell on!
They were offering a re-sale programme but there is a waiting order depending on what no 1-500 and would only buy back the plot from you in numerical order and only would buy back 1 plot at a time for every other 9 properties they sold!! -so you could be waiting ages, even years for your plot to sell or NOT sell at all because of the state of the sales market in spain!

The reasons they are marketing the development like this is because the government have put bans and laws into place and effect now to stop developers buying up big plots of land for these types of developments- as the market is flooded with them!
Because they are selling off plots individually they will register the land under the individual buyers- its complicated but developers are finding loop holes to be able to do this!
Also the land will be registered under the plot owners names so if the development doesnt get the approval- then your left with a piece of land along with 499 others, that you cant do anything with!
If you then want your money back instead of the land then you have to go to court and put an embargo on the land then the government will try to sell it off for you- but this could take YEARS!! And theres no guarentee anyone will buy it back off you-if plannings been refused already!

We had concerns regarding selling on-as it looked highly unlikely we would be ABLE to re-sell it on and be left with it and have to go through with the building a villa satge on detailed planning stage-which we could not and did not want to do!
Depending or your exit strategy and available funds, be prepared not to be able to sell in time or at all and have to go ahead and build a villa and sit on it in the hope you will be able to re-sell it one day or keep it for yourself!
Also if once completed you are relying on rental income then be careful- as you may not achieve good rental income!!

Also there is a development in the area that is selling off plan just up the road from JDLR called TORREGRANDE GOLF and we saw the office for it in town when we drove through!

These were our thoughts and reservations on the development at the end of the day-just thought Id let you know from 1st hand experience after looking in depth at it and having been there etc!!!

Something told me that it didnt quite feel right or add up and I wasnt confident in the future of the development at the end of the day- but I suggest you go out there and see for yourself!!

Sorry I could carry on forever, but if you need any more info Ill try and help!!

Take care, good luck with your decisions!!

See ya D