Barcelona
is like Paris or Rome —only smaller and a fraction of the price. It’s the chicest
city in Spain. All the trendy European and American designers have shops
here. It’s also safe, cheap... and easy to get around. And it has some
excellent, if bizarre, architecture.
I spent a few
days in Barcelona recently and am trying to figure out a way to spend more
time there. It would be the perfect place to take Spanish classes… studying
by day... and putting your new skills into practice until the wee hours
of the morning in the city’s many bars, restaurants, and late-night hot
spots.
In addition
to being a great place to live, Barcelona makes good investment sense.
Apartments
here are a fraction of what you’d pay in other European cities... I
and I believe the prices will go up dramatically in the not-too-distant
future. More on that in a moment.
Art Nouveau
The guy who
gets most of the credit for the crazy looking buildings in this town is
Antoni Gaudi. He devoted his life to the style that would later be known
as Catalan Modernisme. His most famous project is the Sagrada Familia cathedral,
which he started in 1883. Gaudi lived on site for 16 years while working
on it. At the time of his death (he was run over by a tram) the
cathedral was only partially finished. Work was delayed for the Spanish
Civil War, and it’s still under construction today. Gaudi is buried in
the crypt. When you look at his work you’re not sure if it’s brilliant...
or something your fifth grader would have come up with in pottery class.
(The city’s most famous artist, Picasso, hated Gaudi’s work, by the
way.)
In addition
to Gaudi’s collection and many other excellent buildings, though, the city
has its fair share of ugly ones, built within the past 50 years.
Late-night
Living
But most of
the city is a pleasure to look at and be in. There are wide, tree-lined
boulevards, clean streets and sidewalks, first-class shopping, many theaters
and restaurants, a bullring, large city parks, and a port packed with sailboats.
Museums and monuments dot the city, many dedicated to the city’s two most
famous artists—Picasso and Joan Miro—although both left for Paris to avoid
the Franco government.
Like the
rest of Spain, Barcelona stays up late.
And it’s not
just teeny-boppers in skimpy outfits heading to the discos (although
there are plenty of those). It’s also regular middle-class folks exercising
their dogs, eating ice cream, walking the streets, sitting on park benches,
sipping coffee…all at 2 o’clock in the morning. They even collect the trash
late at night. As I walked around the city at 2 a.m., twice I had to get
out of the way of garbage truck workers in orange uniforms.
Compared with
other major European cities (London, Paris, and Prague, for example),
Barcelona is downright cheap. Even in the over-priced tourist spots you
can get a good meal for two for around $25. At a café on La
Rambla, Spain’s most famous street (see the sidebar above), we had
an early-evening meal consisting of two pizzas, a 1/2 liter bottle of wine,
a 1/2 liter jug of sangria, bottled water, and a Coke. Our bill, including
a 375 peseta cover charge, was Ptas4,400 ($25). In the half-dozen bars
where I drank beer and wine, I never paid more than $2 a glass. In Paris,
just a few weeks later, I paid more than three times as much for the same
drinks. In Barcelona’s local market, Merchat de Sant Josep (known locally
as “La Boqueria”), you can buy fresh salmon for $2.50 a pound, fresh
strawberries for 35 cents a pound, bananas for 39 cents a pound, pistachios
for $4.50 a pound, and good local wine for less than $3 a bottle.
Post-Franco
Recovery
Real estate
and rentals in Barcelona are surprisingly inexpensive…and a very sound
investment, particularly right now, if you’re paying with dollars or sterling.
Prices are relatively low because Spain is still digging itself out of
General Franco’s socialist mess.
The country
has been steadily improving since its plunge into democracy after Franco’s
death in 1975, but it still has a way to go to catch up with the rest of
Europe. The economy grew 3.7% last year (and has grown more than 3%
per year for the past four years). The government has done a good job
cutting taxes... and promises, as do most governments, to do even better.
More than 100,000 small businesses were started last year in the city,
and unemployment is down to 15% or 20%, depending on who you believe. I
was told by one Spaniard that the unemployment rate is actually much lower
than this because many Spaniards work but claim not to in order to collect
unemployment checks.
Despite these
improvements, on the whole, the average Spaniard is still poorer than the
average Frenchman, Brit, or Italian, for example.
So property
prices, even in bustling Barcelona, lag behind comparable European cities.
We expect prices to rise considerably here in the coming years. The government
is stable, the economy is prosperous, and Spain is increasingly gaining
in popularity. I read recently that Barcelona and Paris are the two most
visited cities in Europe. Prices should certainly rise in the next few
years.
Apartments
from $120,000
In Barcelona
Metropolitan, a free English monthly about living in the city, the
most expensive flat I found was a 777 square foot apartment on Meridiana
Avenue, in the center of the city, for Ptas85,000 a month (US$485). It
has three bedrooms and is fully furnished. Another good place to
look for apartment listings is La Vanguardia, a local (written in
Spanish) newspaper (www.lavanguardia.es).
Here I found a three-bedroom apartment in L’Eixample, the city’s famous
historic district, with a balcony and a full kitchen. Price: Ptas55,000
a month (US$314). You could certainly rent a nice two-bedroom apartment
in one of the best parts of town for $450 to $750 a month. And you can
buy an apartment, in the old part of town, for less than $150,000. I saw
a 3-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath apartment with a dining room and a kitchen for
Pts21,000,000 (US$120,000)…and a huge 4-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot apartment
with two bathrooms, an office, and a kitchen for Ptas40,600,000 (US$230,000).
Barcelona would
be a perfect place to spend a few weeks every year. You could brush up
on your Spanish at one of the city’s many language schools, catch up on
your late-night partying, or go to some of the nice beach towns, such as
Sitges, no more than a 20-minute drive away.
Here are
some more properties on offer right now:
• A 3-bedroom,
2-bathroom, 914-square-foot apartment with a large terrace, a storage room,
a dining room, a pantry, and a fully-equipped kitchen, and an elevator,
for Ptas 18,200,000 ($105,236).
• A 2-bedroom,
1-bathroom, 656-square-foot apartment with a dining room, a kitchen, central
heating, a storage room, and parking, costs 13,300,000 pesetas ($76,903).
Contact Qualitat 2000; tel. (34-93)8711-736, fax 970, e-mail:rialbi@retemail.es,
website:www.partal.com/cardedeu
• A third-floor,
914square-foot apartment, in a 40-year-old building, has 2 bedrooms, 1
bathroom, a lift, a kitchen, a living room, and a dining room. There are
parquet floors throughout the entire apartment. It costs 25 million pesetas
($144,509).
• A 645-square-foot
penthouse apartment, close to the plaza de toros (bullring), with a sea-view,
windows with mosaics, and a 323-square-foot terrace. It comes fully furnished
and has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, and a dining room. Price: 29.5
million pesetas ($170,520). Contact Van Den Hout Enterprises; tel.(34-93)2653-515,
e-mail:office@vdhenterprises.com,
website:www.vdhenterprises.com.
-
