Last November the Spanish Government let slip that they were looking at introducing Residence Visas for people outside the EU providing that they invested a minimum of €160,000 in Spain. That investment could be in property, meaning that people could buy a property and then qualify for a residence visa that they could not otherwise obtain. Whilst this was not an official announcement and had not yet been approved, many people got very excited by the prospect of this figure - not least of all estate agents and owners of properties who were struggling to sell and who could see potential new markets opening up. Agents and owners started to wonder at the possibilities of huge numbers of buyers coming in from countries such as China.

About a month ago I was in Madrid speaking to various people. One of those people I have known for many years and would trust absolutely. He has very good friends in very high places, one of whom he introduced me to. I was informed by both of them that the actual threshold that would be introduced in order to get a Visa would be €280,000. That figure made much more sense - it was treading that middle ground between being high enough to stop huge numbers of immigrants coming into the country but low enough to undercut some of the other countries that already offer such schemes (such as Portugal).

I have just come back from a couple of weeks on holiday and now see that the figure being talked about is €500,000. Clearly there has been a change of some sorts in the last few weeks for the figure to go up so dramatically. Having said that, the law has been announced but hasn't yet been finalised so there is still time for this figure to change yet again. I would not be surprised at all if the figure is reduced down to somewhere in the €160-500,000 range but we will see what happens. Bearing in mind the fact that Portugal has set its figure at €500,000, my guess is that if the figure for Spain is going to change again it will likely go down rather than up.