2023-12-16 14:07:37
There is a city that rose to real estate fame in the early 2000s, Seseña. In this Tolena town bordering Madrid, the builder and developer Francisco Hernando, popularly known as ‘El Pocero’, designed more than 13,000 homes between a tire landfill and the high-speed line. The first houses were inaugurated in 2007, which ended up being the last ones he would launch because, just a few months later, a hurricane-shaped real estate crisis ended his empire.
More than fifteen years later, the neighborhood that El Pocero planned in Seseña never became a reality. However, it has continued to be built, despite the fact that the person who conceived it died in 2020 due to pneumonia derived from the Covid-19.
The growth of the Castilian municipality of La Mancha was spectacular during the years of the real estate boom: in the 2000s the population of the town was around 4,000 people and, in 2018 (latest data published by the Statistics National Institute), exceeds 24,000. According to data from the real estate Big Data platform Brains Real Estate, during the 80s and 90s barely 200 houses were built a year. On the contrary, once the millennium began this figure grew exponentially, with more than 8,000 properties delivered between 2003 and 2008.
After the tsunami, construction in this area, characterized as an affordable and accessible place to buy a house, came to a screeching halt. Most of the homes ended up in the hands of the banks and were later sold at a bargain price, while the land fell fallow. Only 5,300 houses were built. “Seseña was where the hare of the real estate market crash jumped,” recalls a real estate journalist from that time.
Two developments under construction
Fifteen years later, if you drive along the A-4, the Andalusian highway, you see construction cranes, something that the inhabitants of Seseña had not seen for years, at least on a large scale. According to data collected at Brains Real Estate, there are two large projects underway, an urbanization of 156 homes and another of chalets.
The great promotion is being promoted by Impact Homes, the promoter platform of the historic Grupo Ferrocarril. It is located in El Quiñón, one of the four areas that divide Seseña and which was the one projected by El Pocero. In this location, Impact is promoting an urbanization of 156 homes, with terraces, one, two, three and four bedrooms, with a garage and storage room, as well as common areas with a paddle tennis court or swimming pool. The prices are affordable, compared to the capital: one bedroom from only 110,500 euros, two from 138,000 euros, three from 160,000 and four from just over 200,000.
“We have already sold 40% of the development, which is financed by BBVA. We started construction last September, so we hope to deliver the homes in the summer of 2025,” explains Rafael González Cobos, president of Grupo Ferrocarril. in a phone call with this newspaper. The manager highlights that the main people interested in buying a house are “young couples and families with children who work in the area, such as in the logistics parks of Illescas.” “We also have people who were renting and want to buy because it compensates for the price. They are the cheapest homes in all of Madrid,” he adds.
Additionally, Impact Homes and Grupo Ferrocarril have one more plot in the area, which was originally going to be used as housing for sale. However, the president of the company recognizes that, in recent months, they are rethinking the project because they have become interested in the promotion of rental housing funds due to the high demand in the area and the low existing supply.
Outside of El Quiñón, Seseña has three more areas, Seseña Nuevo, Seseña Viejo and Vallegrande. In Seseña Nuevo, Grupo Egido, a developer and construction company founded in the 1950s and focused on the south of Madrid, has developments underway. In recent years, the company has delivered more than 50 chalets and sold more than 120, some of them still pending completion of the works in the coming months. In addition, they have land to build 200 more single-family homes in the next four or five years.
“The sales rate in the area is very good. We detected a type of product that was popular in the market: one- or two-story villas, between two and four bedrooms, with up to 140 square meters built. We are now on our sixth phase,” explains David Castro Díaz, commercial director of the family-owned company.
The manager highlights that one of the attractions of the developments in the area is the price: “They are very competitive chalets, starting from 190,000 euros. In addition, they have an A energy rating, an optimal distribution and are only 30 minutes from the center of Madrid. Our sales rate is very good.” The buyer profile of Egido houses ranges “from couples who are just starting out to established marriages.” “60% of our clients are from surrounding municipalities, while 40% are more foreign, from the outer ring of the M-30,” adds Castro Díaz.
Lastly, there is also an announced ongoing cooperative. At the moment, they do not give any clues about the number of homes they will build. They only announce that it is a promotion of apartments and townhouses of 100 and 115 square meters, respectively, with three bedrooms, with prices ranging from 160,000 and 195,000 euros.
House prices have doubled
In recent years, it could be said that Seseña has experienced its second real estate ‘boom’, although not comparable to the first. Between 2008 and 2009, the highest historical prices were recorded in the municipality, between 1,400 and 1,700 euros per square meter, according to the College of Registrars. In subsequent years these plummeted, to the point that houses cost less than half what they did in the golden age: in the fourth quarter of 2013 the minimum was set, at just over 600 euros per square meter.
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Precisely, at the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 the second ‘boom’ of Seseña began, which to this day has not come to an end. Only in 2017 and 2020 did prices fall slightly to subsequently continue their rise. As of June 30 of this year, the average price exceeds 1,200 euros per square meter, double what they cost. Even the few new construction developments that there are, like those mentioned above, go on the market for over 1,600 euros per square meter. The rent doesn’t give a break either. Since 2015, prices have almost doubled. In that year you could rent a three-bedroom house for around 500 euros, now something unthinkable for less than 900.
The virulence in the rise of the residential market, mainly due to a lack of supply of new housing and the attraction of population looking for affordable homes, is one of the great concerns of the Toledo City Council, which in 2022 began working on a new Planning Plan Municipal, with the intention of activating land to build up to 13,825 new apartments. However, municipal politics has taken a turn in the last local elections in May, which have meant a change of political color in the mayor’s office, now in the hands of the PP and before that of the PSOE. It remains to be seen if the new councilor, Juan de Hita, wants to recover the urban planning project of his predecessor.
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