Property for sale in Elviria

Three markets, in order of size

Apartments are the largest group, detached villas the second and plots the third — and the third is what makes this district unusual. Townhouses and semi-detached pairs exist but are the minority here, which is worth knowing if that is specifically what you came for.

The flats

Middle floors dominate, with ground floors behind them and a substantial band of penthouses and penthouse duplexes above. Most sit in gated schemes between the coast road and the beach, with communal pools, gardens and parking, and a good share of the blocks have a lift. The flats are the realistic way into this district. They have a list of their own at apartments in Elviria, and the coast-wide segments are middle floor apartments and penthouses.

The villas

Largely in the pine woods above, on plots that would be unthinkable anywhere near Puerto Banús, with private pools and gardens that have had decades to grow. The top of this market is in the trees rather than on the sand, and so is the widest part of the range. The houses here have a page of their own at houses in Elviria, and the coast-wide lists are houses and detached villas.

The land

A steady trickle of serviced parcels, which no other Marbella district of this size can claim in the same numbers. Unsold parcels are the reason there is still green between these houses: the district was never bought out in a single cycle, and what reaches the market now was held by families through two of them. The building land has a page of its own at plots in Elviria, and the wider lists are residential plots and plots in Marbella.

The sixties and seventies went up beside the sand

The first building here was on the flat ground between the coast road and the water: low blocks of two and three storeys, set back from the beach behind planted grounds, with a hotel or two and the beach clubs that came with them. Those schemes were granted gardens that no planning department would release today. The oldest buildings in the district have the most ground around them, which is why a sixties block beside the sand frequently feels less crowded than a scheme finished forty years later.

The eighties and nineties filled the pine wood

The villa wave came next and it went uphill into the trees: detached houses on wide parcels, pitched roofs in curved tile, arches, columns, a pool terrace cut into the slope and a double gate on a quiet street. The wooded band was built one plot at a time rather than as schemes, which is why no two houses up there match and why the streets wander instead of running straight.

The newest houses are on the upper slopes

Above the woodland the ground gets steep and the building gets recent: flat roofs, long glazing, stone and render, the living floor stacked on top of the garage because the contour leaves no other option. Height is what the hillside sells, and the last twenty years of building went looking for it. These are the houses with a view of the whole bay and the longest drive to a loaf of bread.

The commercial centre on the coast road is the district's high street

Elviria has something most of this coast's residential districts do not: a cluster of shops on the main road, with supermarkets, a pharmacy, banks, hairdressers, a handful of bars and restaurants, and parking in front of it. Daily errands here do not involve driving into Marbella, which is a larger part of why families settle on this side of the municipality than any brochure admits. It is also the reason the district has a visible winter population.

The beach clubs behind the sand have been there for decades

The shore here is lined with long-established beach clubs rather than with a public promenade: sun loungers, a restaurant on the sand, a car park behind, and in several cases a hotel behind that. A beach club is what this coast has instead of a paseo at this end. The effect is that the sand is busy in bands and empty in between, and that the beach stays in use for lunch well into the autumn.

The woodland edge is a maintained edge

Where the gardens of the upper streets meet the pines, the boundary is kept rather than left: undergrowth cut back through the spring, a cleared margin around the buildings, dead wood taken out before the dry months. The wooded band looks untouched and is not, and the difference between a plot that has been kept and one that has not is visible from the street at the end of a long summer.

Letting

One of the stronger propositions on this coast, because the district has both halves of the calendar: the beach fills July and August while the golf and the mild winters fill the autumn and the spring, and the schools put a market under the longer let as well. Few addresses on this coast have three distinct seasons in one year. Our rental service takes on the licence, the changeovers and the quarterly filings, and gives you a figure after management rather than before it.

Why the nine-month tenant exists here

In most districts on this coast the only realistic tenant is a holidaymaker, which means a turnover of strangers and a changeover between every booking. Elviria is one of the few places with a second kind: the international schools bring families who arrive for a school year rather than a fortnight. They come in September, they leave in June, and they want a house with a garden in walking distance of a gate rather than a sea view. That demand is the reason the villas in the wooded band have tenants in January, and it is unique on this side of the municipality to the districts with schools in them.

What depth does to a district

In a district with this many comparable properties, a sensibly priced one finds a buyer, which is not true where a flat of a given kind appears once every few years. Depth is what makes a market move rather than wait. The attributes that hold their value here are the band you are in, the aspect and — on a villa — the ground, because a house can be rebuilt and a plot cannot be replaced.