Junta auctions off more of its unused properties in Andalucía: this is how you could bag a bargain

The regional government of Andalucía is continuing with its plans to sell off assets in its possession that are unused, underutilised and even abandoned properties, plans that have already generated 138 million euros in revenue.

The regional ministry of economy, finance and EU funds has just launched its latest auction to dispose of this type of unused assets with 27 properties and plots of land for sale at a starting price of 22 million euros.

This is the sixth auction of public assets by the Junta de Andalucía since the first one was held in 2019. The aim is to repurpose these spaces and generate resources to sustain and improve management in key regional areas such as healthcare and education.

The properties recently put up for sale are spread across all eight provinces of Andalucía and some have been unused for decades. These include the one located in Calle Álvarez de Castro in Almeria (unused since 2018), the former Rosa Navarro secondary school in Olula del Río, also in Almeria and remains abandoned since 1997.

The auction features some pretty unique properties, everything from three silos that have been in disuse for years in Villanueva del Arzobispo and Jódar, both in Jaen province, and the third in the Seville municipality of Écija, through to parking spaces, disused plots of land and industrial buildings such as the Eurocei in the Seville town of San Juan de Aznalfarache.

The regional ministry in charge of these sales pointed out that, until 2019, there was no updated inventory detailing all these assets that belong to the people of Andalucía. For this reason, those in charge began to identify in detail these regional assets to uncover those that were unused or underutilised and for which there was no plan or project to use them in the future.

Furthermore, these properties were also generating maintenance and tax costs that the Junta estimated at more than six million euros, which now represents a saving for the regional coffers.

So, it was back in 2019 that the auctioning of unused public assets began to take shape and five have been held to date. For the first, a total of 22 properties were put up for sale, including the sale of the Post Office building in Malaga city for 23.5 million euros and the Palacio de la Tinta for 21 million euros, together with the former holiday and leisure park (cheap holidays for working families) in Cadiz for 11.8 million euros.

In the second auction, plots of land from the former Expo '92 (a major commercial trade exhibition) in Seville were sold off, including the former Japanese pavilion, which sold for 1.2 million euros, along with Villa Teresita in Granada for 1.2 million euros.

In the third auction, four plots of land were sold, most notably the former Santa Bárbara artillery factory in Seville for 27.4 million euros, also the former Mondragones barracks in Granada for 15.1 million euros. In the fourth auction, seven properties were sold for more than seven million euros.

Finally, in the fifth auction, five tourist properties were put up for sale, including three tourist villas closed down 15 years ago and two leisure and holiday residences, those in Sierra Nevada and Siles (Jaen). The tourist villas of Fuenteheridos and Cazalla de la Sierra sold for 832,113 euros.