The future is looking good for the Spanish rental property market as figures in the UK showed an overall increase of 1.1% for the year of 2009. The report, from the Halifax, shows an increase of over 1% on the cost of property from the beginning of 2009. This increase leaves the average of a home in the UK at £169,042.

This latest report is immensely encouraging for the Spanish real estate market as it indicates an upwards trend that will eventually see house prices in Spain come back up from the lows enforced by the worldwide economic crisis. For those Spanish property owners who managed to hang on to their rental properties, this will see the value of their assets increase gradually throughout 2010 and will generally strengthen the Spanish property market.

The report calculated the increase by comparing the average cost of a property in the UK during the last 3 months of the year compared to the same period one year ago. Even more encouraging is the news that the last few months of 2009 saw the biggest ever increase in the average cost of a property, fuelling speculation that the worst is over and the real estate market is regaining health.

There is of course still a long way to go for Spanish homeowners, as Howard Archer from IHS Global Insight pointed out, "Despite the further significant rise in house prices reported by the Halifax in December, we remain sceptical that the house price rally seen since early-2009 can be sustained for much longer".