It says that although there can be no long-term continuation of the 20-per-cent-plus annual price rises seen from 2000 to 2003, and the 15 per cent seen last year, there remains no likelihood of a crash.Anyone buying a second home in Barcelona is likely to be able to rent it out with little difficulty. Until recently, this was rare; most Spanish owners left their property empty if they did not use it. But in 2002 Catalonia’s regional government gave tax incentives to landlords and the rental sector has blossomed.”Buying to let in a Mediterranean city like Barcelona is interesting because of the mix of tourism, international business and conventions,” says Rita Fryer, of the buying agency Property Finders. “It offers an ideal combination of good annual rental return, capital growth, and an easy exit.”She says a small apartment can attract 150 to 200 euros (£100 to £135) per night if a landlord wants very short-term tenancies (and can therefore use the property himself between tenants) or an average of 100 euros (£67) a night if a long-term professional tenant is secured. Flats in this suburb fetch £900 per square metre – a fraction of the £3,750psm reached in one of the most expensive areas of the city centre, Eixample, where Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia is located.The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which looks at the Spanish property market each spring, says the country’s boom is now the longest-running and largest in Europe and is led by a shortage of supply in urban areas compared with the demand from buyers.

Diagonal Mar, a hitherto depressed central area that missed out on the regeneration for the 1992 Olympics, is now being transformed, and a large, three-bedroom apartment in a modernised 1950s block is on sale for £205,000 on www.homesearchbarcelona .The block sits near five newer towers where some off-plan purchasers in 2002 have sold apartments at a 50 per cent profit. Gracia 99 has just been renovated, with Catalonian interior designer Carlos Ferrater providing marble and wood surfaces throughout, and sliding glass doors in most rooms.There is a concierge service and parking (a scarcity in the city) and the 69-unit development is being marketed internationally to attract a wide range of buyers – although only if they can meet the hefty tag of £510,000 to £1.25m for each apartment, on sale through UK agency Savills.Not everywhere in the city centre is that expensive. Spain’s second city is now one of the most fashionable places to live, its estate agency sector is beginning to target British buyers, and developers are producing some distinctive homes.
Probably the most chic is Paseo de Gracia 99 in the midst of the city-centre caf?rea, close to the Placa de Catalunya landmark and surrounded with architectural gems by Antonio Gaudi. I’ve known pubs with gardens and parking areas be turned into five or six residential units,” he says. He predicts that more pubs, especially in Victorian areas of big cities, may be on sale shortly “Drive through somewhere like Nottingham. It may have a binge-drinking image in its city centre, where there are trendy bars aimed at younger people, but on the outskirts there’s a bog-standard boozer every 150 yards It’s difficult to imagine many of them making a profit.

Some will be for sale soon enough,” he says.Developers, of course, will drink to that.. Think of buying in Spain and you invariably conjure up images of hillside fincas or coastal villas – but if you want a truly stylish home and a shrewd investment, look to Barcelona. But even in these days of severe housing shortages, planning permission to convert is not a dead cert.”If it’s the only pub in a village, for example, a local authority will probably refuse permission for it to be converted, even though it may not be financially viable,” says John Graham, of AW Gore, a Sussex-based agency specialising in the sale, letting and valuation of pubs across the UK.The owners of a pub in Wiltshire last year sought consent to convert it into a house but this was rejected on appeal. The planning inspector said the business had been deliberately run down to make it economically unviable, but that a better-disposed management could make it a success. It remains open as a pub.In Cambridgeshire a brewery failed to turn a village pub into a house when a planning inspector said the scheme “would amount to a serious loss to the social life of this village”. But Graham says sharp developers look for locations where there are several pubs – which normally means at least one is doing badly and may be happy to sell up.”If you can get permission, there are rich pickings.