Is Prince’s unsold Marbella villa a Sign o’ the Times for homebuyer tastes?

Sadly departed musician Prince, who died earlier this month from as-yet-unknown-causes, was famous for many things: his musical prowess, his flamboyance, his diminutive stature, his love of the colour purple… but for many who have lived in southern Spain his name is synonymous with a certain unique type of décor, grandeur and kitsch – and all because of the ‘Prince Villa’.

Located in El Paraiso in the hills just west of Marbella, the €5.25 million villa has famously been on the market for years. Prince bought the palatial pad in 1998 as a gift for his then wife, but he duly sold it in 2006, and the home has been up for sale for a long time since.

A recent article by Bloomberg, sought to examine just what it is about the villa – which is glam, garish and glitzy in equal measure – that is just so unsellable?

“The house is very glam, very luxurious, but also very flashy; it’s a bit outdated in that sense,” said local nightclub owner, Olivia Valere. She has a point: Marbella has long been a bellwether of high end tastes and fashions, and the style these days is to go for understated elegance rather than anything too brash or knowing.

At more than €5 million, the property is out of the reach of most home-hunters in the region, but following Prince’s untimely death, perhaps a buyer may now be found for a property often regarded as an inspiration for some of Prince’s later work.

The Costa del Sol’s property market will thrive with or without Prince’s former abode changing hands. According to data from Tinsa, the average time it takes to sell a house in Spain is 10.5 months, nationally. For Marbella and the Costa del Sol, it is just 9.1 months, and prices in the region are set to increase by a further 4.3 per cent in 2016.