If you have been contemplating the purchase of a villa or even an apartment in Spain and been researching it, you may have stumbled across the phrase "Off Plan Property" or even "Off Plan Real Estate" and wanted to know exactly what was meant by this. The simple answer is that it applies to purchasing a property before it has even been built.

Usually and certainly for the last ten years, buying off plan has been an excellent way to purchase property in Spain. Constructors generally offer the villa at a good discount to what you would expect to normally pay for similar resale property locally and certainly less than what they are expected to sell for when the whole site is completed. In fact it is not just ordinary buyers that have been using this system, but many big investors and property speculators have made considerable profits buying and then selling on when complete.

Usually off plan buyers have taken inspection trips that are set up by agents in Britain or their own country and Spain to help find and buy their off plan holiday home in Spain. These are 4 or 5 day tours with the sole purpose of visiting as many apartments and villas in a pre agreed price range and region as is possible. Buyers are taken to all the new building sites where can see show houses, check site plans, see where "their own" property will be located.

If they find a suitable property a small deposit of 2000 pounds is paid over and then usually within a few months a further 50 percent is paid over, with the final balance paid on the completion. In the recent boom years this might have been anything up to 2 years, but the recent property slump has seen this reduced in all but the very popular and most expensive resorts. All paid deposits should be covered by a major bank guarantee scheme, please check before you sign a contract, plus builders are not allowed to commence building before all the local infrastructure is finished nowadays, which has remedied many of the old problems of constructors vanishing before roads and drainage were finished.

More recently, due to the down turn in sales and the bank clampdown on sub prime type Spanish mortgages, the Spanish constructors reluctantly reduced prices and have been offering lots of goodies as buying incentives. This has often included such extras as air con, marble floors, quality fitted kitchens, electrical appliances and whole furniture packs, so do not forget to ask as it is a now buyers market. Remembering that those who do not ask do not get, especially as quite often the agents commission is sometomes reduced by these extras.

To find more property or real estate advice and tips please visit Off Plan Property