It’s early spring in Barcelona and Las Ramblas is packed with visitors from all over the world. One of the most famous thoroughfares in the world, the broad street leading from the centre of the Spanish city down to the sea front is brimming with life plus the inevitable tourist schlock. Foreigners drinking café con leche, snacking on churros and marvelling at street performers greatly outnumber the locals who are out and about enjoying a stroll.
Just a few hundred metres away, however, is the real Barcelona. The city’s Raval district, which runs to the west of the Ramblas, is off the radar of most tourists. But it has caught the attention of an increasing number of property buyers looking for good value in what has become a steadily rising city market.
The name Raval comes from the old Catalan word for “outside” because, until the 14th century, the area was beyond Barcelona’s walls. Even today it feels distinctly different from the rest of the city, with a large ethnic population, including immigrants from north Africa and the Philippines, who nonchalantly rub shoulders – and bump shopping trolleys – with elderly Spanish matrons dressed in their signature black.
There are still a few pockets, such as the streets running south of Carrer de L’Hospital and east of the Rambla de Raval, that are best avoided. But most of Raval has benefited in recent years from public investment and an influx of trendy private businesses, as proprietors flee higher rents elsewhere in Barcelona’s old town. The Carrer de L’Hospital, which winds its way from the Ramblas, is the main street and is a constant focus of activity. But streets such as the Carrer del Carme, Carrer del Pintor Fortuny and Calle San Antoni Abat are now playing host to hip new arrivals too: restaurants with neo-industrial decor and cool bars with kitsch interiors, squeezed between the halal butchers and decades-old tapas bars, linen shops and grocers. Rambla de Raval, with its pine trees, cafés and restaurants with tables spilling out on to the pavement, has also been refurbished and a five-star hotel is set be built nearby.
One of the most visible examples of government spending in Raval is the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Macba), the striking new modern-arts complex that opened in 1995. Designed by US architect Richard Meier, the building’s gleaming white edifice pays homage to Le Corbusier and provides a perfect contrast to the wrought iron detailing and traditional shutters on the apartment blocks around it. Unlike the broad avenues of the gridiron Eixample district, Barcelona’s 19th-century extension, Raval has a higgledy-piggledy plan of narrow streets so apartment balconies are often only a few metres away from each other. Shafts of Mediterranean sunlight stream through, picking out pots of geraniums and drying clothes for a rather magical effect.
Simon McVicker, a London-based political lobbyist, and his partner bought their flat in Raval in January 2001. “We wanted somewhere in Barcelona because we know the city and love it. We were originally more interested in the Gothic district on the other side of the Ramblas or the Eixample but it was our estate agent who guided us towards Raval,” McVicker says. “We wanted somewhere which offered good value and was near the beach but was still quite central and Raval fits all those requirements.”
The couple bought their fourth-floor, two-bedroom flat in the centre of the area for 13m pesetas, the equivalent of about £47,000 at the time, but it is now thought to be worth about €222,000 (£150,000). McVicker flies from London for long weekends every few months and also rents the flat out to holiday makers attracted by its proximity to the Ramblas, the airport, the elegant shops of the Passeig de Gracia and the beach, which is just 20 minutes’ walk away.
McVicker compares the rejuvenated Raval to London’s Soho during the 1980s. “The area has changed a great deal since we bought and now every time we go we find new shops, restaurants and bars opening,” he says. “It’s very popular now with young Barcelonese.”
Josep Batllori, his estate agent, adds: “Raval offers good value for money and it’s very popular with young buyers and baby boomers at the moment. More people are now beginning to buy apartments in the old blocks, renovate them and sell them on but you can also find properties that need work done to them.”
The Born district, which is further down the Ramblas on the eastern side of the old town, underwent gentrification 10 years ago and offers an attractive role model for Raval – and for potential property buyers, explains Alex Vaughan of Barcelona-based estate agency Lucas Fox. “Prices in Raval rose by about eight to 10 per cent last year,” he says. “Properties in the area are apartments – about 100 years old – but they’re well built and quite a few are now being renovated by private developers and the local council.” Lucas Fox has, for example, a twobedroom, newly renovated, third-floor apartment near the Macba with new kitchen and bathroom and exposed brick walls priced at €317,500.
Purchasing a home in Barcelona is relatively simple and straightforward. “Some people are concerned about property horror stories from southern Spain but in Catalonia it involves a notary system to check things like the title ownership of the vendor,” Vaughan says. Buyers pay a deposit to take the property off the market and then the process moves on to what is known as the Arras contract, which states all the agreed terms of the offer and sale and sets out the date for completion at the office of a notary. Soon after that, a deed, called an escritura, is signed, which transfers the title, and then the final part of the price is paid.
“You can buy to let quite easily but most people buy here because they want to live here rather than renting out,” Vaughan says. Long-term rentals yields are between 2.5 and 3 per cent, with short-term or holiday yields inevitably better at about eight to 10 per cent. Apartment block maintenance is regulated by law and McVicker says he’s found the management of his block to be well organised and easy to handle, even from London.
Lucy Clegg, a graphic designer from Dorset, England, bought her third-floor studio apartment in Raval for €82,000 three years ago. She thinks it has appreciated by about 30 per cent and now spends about six months of the year there. “I can’t believe how this area has changed,” she says. “When I came to Barcelona as a student it was very rough and we were warned to steer well clear but now, although it still feels rather edgy and urban, it’s also very real. I know my neighbours and going out to buy bread or fruit and vegetables and fish from the Mercat San Josep, which is on my doorstep, is a wonderful experience.”
■Lucas Fox, tel: +34 933-562 989; www.lucasfox.com
■Josep Batllori, jbatfer@hotmail.com
