After the pandemic, the countrymen have changed residence, and the rise of the mexican population is having a positive impact on the economy of Madrid, because it generates new jobs and businesses

The Spanish capital live a their first heat wave of the summer. The streets are full of bars and restaurants, terraces crowded with people. In the calle Lagasca, located in the upscale Salamanca District, between customers dominate the accents of Latin america, especially mexico.

All unique to this area of madrid is traversed by walking. A few meters away from Lagasca, in Serrano street, are establishments of clothing with a ticket minimum of hundreds of dollars: Loewe, Prada, Versace, Gucci, Roberto Verino. In this district, comprising six districts, with more than 30 luxury hotels, lived from the dictator Francisco Franco, to the poets, Pablo Neruda, and Antonio Machado, among many other political leaders and intellectuals.

In the madrid Neighborhood of Salamanca is located to the main embassies. All dotted with shops gourmet, points of sale and assistance of the big technology and communications, banks, headquarters of multinational companies. The Retiro Park, the green area, more extensive, and green to the centre of the city, is in the Neighborhood of Salamanca. There is No lack of schools and hospitals that are more exclusive. An offer of life similar to that of Polanco, but without the need of men.

“It has become common to see scenes typical of any restaurant in Mexico, of high status. A lord inviting someone famous that dinner at the next table, with a bottle of good alcohol. Another claiming to skip the waiting list with 100 euros,” says Elsa García Núñez.

Elsa was the last director of the office of Pro Mexico in Spain, until its dissolution by the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Currently, García Núñez is the vice president of the Business Association Mexico-Spain. The directive is 20 years in Madrid and says that after the pandemic have not stopped getting mexicans to Madrid. Especially in the above-mentioned Neighborhood of Salamanca. "In an event of the association last April we had hoped to 90 people and reached nearly 400," recalls Elsa.

Spanish Juan José López Cantos he is the director of the company Hemic Real Estate Investments. Her first big sale was a building in the Neighborhood of Salamanca for a value of eur 48 million. The buyer was a mexican. “Since 2017, they start to get to Madrid investors latinos, especially venezuelans. In 2018 and 2019, so do the mexicans. Come to buy luxury, to be installed”, it has to Publimetro Juan José. Of his company's clients, half of them are american, of these, 50% are mexican.

Madrid in 2015 was a city with an important offer of real estate in the market at low prices, the result of a crisis that started in 2008. In 2014, still feeling the effects of the bursting of the so-called “housing bubble”. In June of that year, 2014, the price of housing fell by 6.6% compared to June 2013. The signing of mortgages for the purchase of housing in march slowed to a 32.4%, after 45 months of declines in a row.

In 2015, investors took advantage of the situation of low prices and over-supply to buy buildings, hotels, soils... making them mainly in residences. In 2016 the field of real estate in Spain was the economic sector to more foreign investment receivedthree thousand 414 million euros in a year.

Once packed the offer, made the renovations and constructions necessary, the product was placed on the market prices are very different to those of a neighborhood devalued. The situation changed in less than half a decade. “Today there are sobredemanda, if there are 10 dwellings there are 50 plaintiffs, that is to say, 80% more demand than supply,” explains Juan José. “100% of the demand 25% are mexicans.” Latin americans in general represent 50% of those interested in purchasing or renting a real estate in this area, considered one of the most expensive of the capital, explains the director of Hemic real Estate Investments.

The pressure of the demand starring mexicans has raised the price of land in this area “to nearly 20%” in five years”, calculated Juan José.

More than ten mexican restaurants open in two years

The mexicanity, the Salamanca District is the area visible by the 15 mexican restaurants open in just two years. One of them is Fisher's, a classic of Polanco and the CDMX. Manage Lalo and Monica. This couple has transfer his life to Madrid. The mexican chain, which Lalo is one of its founders, decided to start its european expansion with a two-storey restaurant, at the requested calle Velázquez.

The emergence of Fisher's and the local mexicans not only is cooking. Have broken with decades of Spanish schedules in which the four of the afternoon shut the kitchens. The tables of Fishers are busy from morning to night without interruption, a scene of Mexico City, but to do anything unthinkable in Madrid. “We were the first not to close the kitchen,” says Leslie.

“The spaniards are enjoying a coffee and a sweet, little by little have been excited about the chilaquiles and breakfast to the mexican”explains Monica, for whom Madrid is not the new Miami, as the style of european life is very different from the american, and that is what appeals to latinos and mexicans tired of distances that only you can travel by car, as it happens in the city of Florida.

Lalo hears a lot of stories in his restaurant, as it is one of the few meeting points of the abundant mexican community, although it contends that its clientele as is “fifty percent Spanish and fifty percent true mexican”. “Are you coming to live people of Monterrey, Puebla, Queretaro, Mexico City. The increase of nationals in Madrid is due to the safety”.

The “mouth to mouth” is for the expert properties, Juan José López Cantosthe main explanation of the investment in Latin america in Madrid and the increase of residents. Many of them on a temporary or continuous bridge back and forth between Madrid and Mexico. The home office that brought the pandemic of covid - 19 affects all new migration world of the middle and upper classesincluding this latinos to Madrid.

Adjacent to the Salamanca District is the district Center - University, in this delegation is located in the Neighbourhood of Malasaña, an area that slowly, over the decades, has gone from an environment underground, in which he was living the cultural scene more advanced with addicts of heroin, to the area with local designs.

A neighborhood favorite of foreigners, mostly young people and entrepreneurs. There live Hector. This mexican architect and partner DH Studio, based in Cancun, and now, also in Madrid. “I love Madrid, the life is on the road side. The factor light, the constant noise in the street, the noise of the morning, I like this life.” Nor did Hector think it is the new Miami. “If you are coming money is because europeans are not mass consumption if not more selective”.

Hector fears again to be in Madrid a problem for real estate speculation. “Returns to the same with the turisficacion. This brings higher prices. It is a difficult issue to handle. There is a lot of empty dwelling because they buy to speculate”. On the future of both countries think that Mexico has a higher probability of growth” of Spain.

These figures and stories, local and personal, rely on a reality macro economic.

Mexico is currently the sixth largest investor in Spain. In a year, 30 billion euros. Depending on the Area of Internationalisation of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, the items that have been absorbed investments mexican in Spain are the construction, real estate, hotelier, and the financial. The same source notes that the majority of these investments have been produced in Madrid.

The effect of the Spanish law 12/2015

This increase in investors and mexican residents is not reflected in official figures, neither the Spanish government nor the mexican. According to data of the National Statistics Institute Spanish 2018 to 2022 has gone from 58 thousand 254 mexicans living in Spain to 71 thousand 151. A figure is very small compared with the 883 thousand moroccan, 314 thousand 663 colombian or 277 thousand italians who are currently residing in Spain. Then, why are so many well-known presence in the Neighborhood of Salamanca and in the economy of the city?

The explanation, point sources consular, is in those mexican citizens with Spanish citizenshipwhich to enter or reside in Spain, of course, not to invest, do not have an obligation to report to the authorities of either of the two countries for their condition of mexicans.

If, due to the Spanish migration of the last century, there are in Mexico a large number of persons with dual nationality, two decisions of the Spanish government in the 2013 and 2015 in order to attract capital in the middle of a crisis, could have influenced in the presence of nationals with high purchasing power. On the one hand the call Golden Visa that gives access to the Spanish residence, after investing more than half a million euros, and on the other the Law 12/2015 referred to the right to Spanish nationality of the descendants sephardic originating in Spain.

The Spanish lawyer Alfonso Garrido is a Founding Partner B LAW & TAX. His office in Madrid and works with high net worth foreigners with an interest in Spain. From the 2020 and 2021 his firm has seen an increase of “very strong” of latino clients.

The arrival of Latin american high-net-worth Madrid coincides with the victory party progressive in their countries of origin. First did the venezuelans, then the argentine, and later the mexicans, and the last to arrive in the Spanish capital, this last year, being the colombians.

Customer of Garrido approximately 35% of which come from Mexico.“95% of these investors in LATAM and Mexico are assets that are looking to invest in the real estate business”. About the Golden Visa is of the opinion that “many of its mexican customers already have a Spanish passport” for which you don't need.

Four thousand 940 visas for investors, or Golden Visa, issued by Spain between 2013 and 2022, 45%, was granted to chinese citizens and 20% to the russians. The data support the impression of the CEO of B LAW & TAX.

In contrast to the official data from the Spanish government upon the grants of citizenship under the Law 12/2015, shed, until march 2023, the result of 21 thousand 156 granted to mexicanson a total of 65 thousand 515 concessions.

This law, promoted by the then justice secretary Spanish, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, the understood “economic actors”, not only as a gesture of diplomatic or “an act of cultural redress”. “Supposed to be a real shock to revive the economy, Spanish” still recovering by the crisis, according delivered the lawyer Alberto Antolí Mendez, a member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors, in his speech input to this institution, July 11, 2019, referring to the israelis of sephardic origin.

Investors of Israel, financed in Spain, mostly in Barcelona but also to Madrid, as of 2018, a great buy and reform of the real estate offer. Companies such as Neinor Homes, Galil Capital Re Spain, Urban View Development, Situr, Investor360 Reit and Barcelona Legend, all with israeli capital, resumed the business of the ground.

According to data of the Ministry of Justice of Spain, of the nationalisation process to the citizens of sephardic origin, Mexico is the first country from the list. The second is Colombia with 16 thousand 809. Venezuela with 8 thousand 673 and Argentina with 4 thousand 559, are the fourth and fifth. While these four countries featured in the new colony of a high purchasing power in Madrid can not say that these nationalisations were used on purpose to reside or invest. Garrido believes that “without a doubt, there were cases of nationalized investing”, but the capital investments have been made of companies in the sector that do not require a passport.

Isaac Ajzen is the director of the Newspaper's Jewish Mexico. Azjen located a large amount of recipients of Spanish citizenship via the Law 12/2015, in the State of Nuevo León, “about ten thousand,” he says, “but many do not profess the jewish religion,” he continues explaining, if you don't have seen an opportunity to move and buy in Spain.

The high costs on lawyers, between 200 thousand and 400 thousand pesos, plus the fact of having to go to sign the nationalization of Spain, once achieved, gives an idea of the economic profile of the majority of the 21 thousand new Spanish of mexican origin.

The arrival of investors and residents from mexico and Latin america in Madrid is far from ceasing. Less with the upward trend of the mexican peso. The Salamanca District is not giving more of themselves. The low supply of homes and apartments to high prices as a result, heading the attention to other neighborhoods of the city. Juan José López Cantos points to the vicinity of the Paseo de la Castellana and is in the Neighbourhood of Latin america as the next to receive the well-to-do Latin colony.

Fuente: https://www.publimetro.com.mx/especiales-publimetro/2023/08/01/mexicanos-transforman-en-un-nuevo-polanco-al-barrio-de-salamanca-en-madrid/