Artur Loginov at the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol: Prime Residential Markets, Shifting Buyer Profiles and the Future of Marbella

By Manuel Huerta June 30th, 2026 · 22m. reading time

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On 25 June 2025, the Hotel Kimpton Los Monteros in Marbella hosted one of the most significant conversations in European real estate. The inaugural Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol, held under the theme Luxury, Business & Future Living, brought together developers, construction leaders, investors and institutional voices for a day of structured debate about the present and future of prime residential property on the Costa del Sol.

Drumelia was an official sponsor of the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol and was represented on the panel by our CEO and co-owner Artur Loginov, who joined José Andrés Mena, CEO of Jamena Construcciones, and Vitaliy Rushchinsky, CEO of Prestige Expo Group and the mind behind the Tirian Residence project. The conversation ranged from the structural transformation of buyer profiles to the long-term geographic expansion of the prime market and it produced insights that we think every serious buyer, seller and investor in this market should hear.

This is our full account of what was discussed at the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol, what it means, and how it connects to what we see every day in our work at Drumelia.

The Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol is not just another industry event. It is the first time that Forbes Spain has organised a dedicated forum focused on this market and the fact that it chose Marbella as its location, and chose to assemble the specific mix of voices it did, says something important in itself.

The forum's concept — Luxury, Business & Future Living — frames the Costa del Sol not merely as a property market but as a complete ecosystem: a place where investment, lifestyle, business creation and quality of life are converging in ways that are reshaping who comes here, why they come, and how long they stay.

The themes on the agenda reflected that ambition. Discussions covered the international investment trends now driving demand, the geographic expansion of the prime market beyond its traditional heartland, the evolution of what buyers expect from prime residential product, and the infrastructure and territorial management challenges that will determine how well the Costa del Sol handles its own success.

As an official sponsor of the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol, Drumelia's presence on the panel was a natural fit. We have been operating in this market since 2003, through its most difficult years and its most extraordinary ones. We work with buyers from more than 20 nationalities. And we have a particular view of where things stand and where they are going.

The conversation at the forum opened, naturally, with an assessment of where the Costa del Sol prime market stands today. There is a broadly shared view and Artur articulated it clearly during his panel contribution, that the market has entered a new and healthier phase.

The post-COVID demand surge was real. In some segments and areas of the prime sector, Marbella saw annual price growth of close to 20% in certain years, extraordinary by any measure, but also inherently unsustainable. That artificial demand has now normalised. What has replaced it is something more interesting: structural demand, driven by buyers who are making deliberate, long-term life decisions rather than reactive, emotion-led acquisitions.

"Marbella knew how to take advantage of that moment very well. The hospital infrastructure, the luxury services, the gastronomy, the entire lifestyle offer — it used those years to build something real. For the first time in my career here, I feel genuinely confident that we have many strong years ahead of us. Slower growth, yes but continuous and very healthy."

— Artur Loginov, CEO, Drumelia Real Estate

That distinction between artificial and structural demand is not just semantic. It determines everything from pricing behaviour to the types of product that get built to the nationalities and profiles of buyers that arrive. A market driven by FOMO and short-term momentum behaves very differently from one driven by the genuine conviction that this is where you want to live your life. The Costa del Sol, in 2025, is firmly in the second category.

José Andrés Mena of Jamena Construcciones, who has been building prime residential product on the coast since the 1970s, confirmed the same reading from his vantage point at the construction end of the chain. Spain now accounts for approximately 8% of the world's prime residential construction, compared to 3% of global construction overall and that disproportionate share is concentrated precisely on the Costa del Sol.

One of the most substantive threads running through the entire panel debate at the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol was the transformation of the prime buyer profile. It is a shift that Drumelia has observed and documented over many years, but the forum provided an opportunity to hear it confirmed from multiple industry perspectives simultaneously.

For decades, the archetypal buyer of prime residential property on the Costa del Sol was a successful businessperson, typically from Northern or Central Europe, usually aged 50 or above, who had accumulated wealth over a long career and was now looking for a home that reflected the life they had built. For this buyer, location was everything. The logic was almost dogmatic: the right address, a specific street in Sierra Blanca, the right side of Marbella's Golden Mile, was more important than the house itself. You could live with a home that was less than perfect if the location was right. You could not make a location better by building a better house.

That logic is changing. Artur described the shift with precision during the panel discussion:

"The older profile was deeply rooted in location. Location, location, location — it was almost hardwired. And on many occasions they would accept a house that was less than ideal if the address was right. What I see now, with the younger profile, is something very different. They are much more open to experimenting with location. The product attracts them first. They are willing to go somewhere they hadn't considered before if the house itself is extraordinary. That opens up entirely new possibilities for how Marbella, Estepona and the surrounding areas can develop."

— Artur Loginov, CEO, Drumelia Real Estate

This shift in orientation — from location-first to product-first,  has significant implications for the geography of prime development on the Costa del Sol. It means that areas outside Marbella's most established enclaves are increasingly viable for ambitious prime projects. It means that a developer or promoter with genuine vision, design quality and service delivery can create demand in locations that would previously have been considered secondary. And it means that buyers are now exercising far more critical judgment about the physical and architectural qualities of what they are purchasing.

The age profile has also shifted in ways that matter beyond aesthetics. Today's younger buyers are often people who have generated their wealth through technology, software, entrepreneurship and the new economy, not through decades in traditional business sectors. Their wealth may be more recently created, but it is no less substantial. And crucially, the nature of how they work, often remotely, often across multiple markets and time zones, gives them a freedom of location that previous generations simply did not have. They are not constrained by proximity to a headquarters in Frankfurt or London. They can live where they want to live. And an increasing number of them are choosing the Costa del Sol.

Perhaps the most consequential structural change in the Costa del Sol market over the past five years is not a change in prices, or in nationalities, or in the type of product being built. It is a change in the fundamental purpose of the purchase.

For most of its modern history, the Costa del Sol prime market was organised around the concept of the second home. Buyers from Northern Europe would purchase here as a complement to their primary life elsewhere, a place for school holidays, summer months, perhaps a few long weekends in the winter. Their primary life remained in London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Amsterdam. The Costa del Sol was a beautiful parenthesis.

That model has not disappeared. But it is being joined and in some segments, overtaken, by something fundamentally different: the primary relocation. Buyers are now arriving on the Costa del Sol not to buy a holiday home but to move their entire lives here. Their families come. Their children enrol in local schools. Their business operations, where possible, shift to accommodate a new base. The question these buyers ask is no longer "where are the best beaches?" It is "where is the best school?", "what is the local healthcare network like?", "is there a good international community?", "can I get on a direct flight to my main business markets?"

Vitaliy Rushchinsky of Tirian Residence captured the shift memorably: "Before, a person who came to the Costa del Sol was looking for sun, for climate, for a second residence. That market has changed completely. Now they are looking for a lifestyle, for education, for healthcare, for security." José Andrés Mena observed the same from a construction perspective: "They are people who are transferring their lives, their entire families, to this area. That is a very different client from the retired businessman from Northern Europe who wanted a place of retreat."

The practical implications of this shift are substantial. When people are making a primary relocation decision rather than a holiday home purchase, they conduct far deeper due diligence. They visit more times. They ask harder questions. They involve their families in the decision. They think carefully about school catchment areas, commute times to the airport, the quality of local medical provision. They are, in short, the most demanding clients the market has ever produced — and the most loyal, once the right match is made.

Drumelia works with clients from more than 20 nationalities, and our approach to the market has always been genuinely international — no single national market dominates our business, and we think that diversity is a structural strength. The forum provided a useful opportunity to take stock of where demand is currently concentrated and where it is moving.

The established core markets remain strong. Central Europe — Germany in particular — the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway have been fundamental to the Costa del Sol prime market for decades, and there is no evidence of that changing. These buyers understand the market, return repeatedly, and generate a disproportionate share of referral business. They are the foundation.

But Artur identified two groups of emerging markets that deserve serious attention:

The Americas

American buyers — from the United States, Canada and Latin America represent a market that is still at an early stage of its relationship with the Costa del Sol but which has significant structural momentum behind it. The US market in particular is increasingly aware of what Marbella offers; buyers who have already discovered Madrid or Barcelona are beginning to arrive on the coast. Latin American buyers, who have already established a powerful presence in Madrid's prime residential market, particularly in the Salamanca neighbourhood, represent the next logical wave. As Artur put it at the forum: "It's the future. When you're in Madrid and you realise there's something even more special here, the way it starts is through friends. One arrives, and then others follow."

The Gulf Cooperation Council

Buyers from the GCC — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and the broader Gulf region are emerging as a significant force at the very top of the prime segment. This is a market with extraordinary purchasing power, a sophisticated understanding of luxury real estate, and a natural alignment with the lifestyle values that the Costa del Sol offers. Artur described GCC buyers as "most relevant in the very, very prime sector" a market that is still developing but which is already reshaping what ultra-prime development on the Costa del Sol needs to deliver.

One of the more forward-looking observations that Artur contributed to the panel debate at the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol concerned a trend he had already explored in detail before the event, as a featured voice in the Costa del Tech documentary. The film does not yet have a counterpart in most mainstream market analyses, but in our view it captures a dynamic with the potential to be genuinely transformative for Marbella over the next decade.

"There is already a significant community in Marbella of young people from the technology industry who have chosen to live here — not necessarily to buy at the top of the market, but to build their lives here and continue working in a sector that operates entirely online. I think this will bring a great deal of innovation to Marbella over the coming years."

— Artur Loginov, CEO, Drumelia Real Estate

The significance of this trend is not just in the immediate purchasing activity it generates. It is in what it signals about the trajectory of Marbella as a place. Cities that attract a young, educated, internationally connected technology community develop in particular ways: the service sector improves, the culinary and cultural scene diversifies, the connectivity infrastructure becomes a priority, the international school network expands. All of this makes the city more attractive to the next wave of prime buyers, who are looking for exactly this kind of vibrant, modern, internationally integrated lifestyle.

A recurring theme at the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol was the expansion of the prime residential market beyond its traditional Marbella heartland. For many years, "prime Costa del Sol" was essentially synonymous with specific districts of Marbella, Sierra Blanca, the Golden Mile, La Zagaleta and a handful of other defined enclaves. Estepona was considered secondary; Benahavís was valued for La Zagaleta but not much beyond; areas like Casares, Manilva and the coast east of Marbella were largely off the radar for serious prime buyers.

That map is changing. As the supply of available land within Marbella's prime districts has tightened and prices have risen, developers and buyers have both begun to look further afield  and what they have found, in many cases, is that the lifestyle offer, the quality of construction and the natural environment in neighbouring areas can match or exceed what Marbella's established enclaves offer, at prices that still represent genuine value.

Estepona has benefited enormously from this dynamic. The town's own investment in its urban environment — its flower-lined pedestrian streets, its restored old town, its improving restaurant and cultural offer, has made it a genuinely attractive alternative for buyers who want the Costa del Sol lifestyle without Marbella's premium. Benahavís, already home to La Zagaleta, continues to attract ultra-prime development. Sotogrande, at the western end of the coast, has its own deeply established international community and a lifestyle offer polo, equestrian sport, a large international school — that attracts a specific profile of buyer with extraordinary loyalty.

The shift in buyer mentality that Artur described, greater openness to location, greater focus on product quality — accelerates this geographic expansion. When the house matters more than the postcode, the boundaries of where prime development can succeed become far more fluid.

The forum's discussion of what prime buyers actually want from the product they purchase, beyond the physical property itself, produced some of the most practically useful observations of the day.

Vitaliy Rushchinsky's Tirian Residence project in Estepona was held up as an example of where the ultra-prime segment is heading. The project delivers 40 residences with a full-time service team of 14 people, a ratio that approaches hospitality, not residential property management. The services include a private beach club, concierge that manages airport transfers, medical appointments, legal matters and daily domestic logistics, and a model in which the building itself becomes the infrastructure for a completely managed life.

As Rushchinsky put it: "We are not selling square metres. We are selling time. The most precious thing these clients have is time and health. Our job is to give both of those back to them."

From a construction perspective, José Andrés Mena of Jamena explained that this expectation of service extends all the way back through the build process. Today's prime clients want to know the person who is building their home, to speak with them directly, to see them on site. They want a single point of contact who stays with the project from foundation to completion. They want transparency about decisions, materials and timelines. And they want that relationship to continue after handover, a level of after-sales commitment that is very different from the transactional norm in commercial construction.

Drumelia's own experience confirms this. The buyers who come to us are not simply looking for a list of properties. They are looking for a partner, someone who understands their situation, can guide them through the complexities of the Spanish purchasing process, and will be available to them long after the transaction is complete. The agencies and developers who will thrive in the prime market of the next decade are those who understand that the sale is the beginning of the relationship, not the end of it.

The overall mood of the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol was confident without being complacent. The participants — all of them with long experience in this market and all of them with genuine capital at stake, share a view that the Costa del Sol is in a structurally strong position for the years ahead. But they also share a clear-eyed understanding of the challenges that need to be addressed if that position is to be maintained and built upon.

Infrastructure is the most pressing concern. The growth in residential population and tourist volume on the Costa del Sol has placed enormous strain on roads, public transport and services. The coastal road from Marbella to Estepona is chronically congested. The long-discussed coastal rail connection remains undelivered. As Rushchinsky noted: "We have to think about improving infrastructure, because growth without that does not lead to any good destination. We have to work together in the same direction."

Supply constraints in the construction sector also represent a structural challenge. Labour shortages, material cost inflation and an increasingly complex regulatory environment mean that delivering prime residential product on the Costa del Sol takes longer and costs more than it did a decade ago. This is not unique to this market, it is a challenge across European construction, but it is particularly acute in a market where client expectations are as high as they are here.

And yet the fundamentals remain extraordinarily strong. The climate, the lifestyle, the international school network, the healthcare infrastructure, the gastronomy, the natural environment, these are not things that can be replicated by competitors. The Costa del Sol has built something genuinely rare: a place that offers world-class quality of life in an environment of exceptional natural beauty, with the connectivity and services that the global prime buyer demands. That combination, once established, is very hard to dislodge.

We leave the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol more convinced than ever that the trajectory of this market slower, more selective, more sophisticated than the boom years, but more durable, is the right one for buyers, for developers, for construction companies and for the territory itself.

Drumelia's involvement in the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol, as an official sponsor and through Artur's participation as a panellist — reflects something fundamental about how we see our role in this market.

We are not simply a property sales business. We are part of an ecosystem, alongside developers, construction companies, hoteliers, restaurateurs, schools and healthcare providers, that is collectively creating something remarkable on this stretch of the Andalusian coast. The conversations that happen at forums like the Forbes Real Estate Forum Costa del Sol matter to us because they shape the market we operate in, the product that gets built, and the clients who ultimately choose to make their lives here.

We are grateful to Forbes Spain and CDComunicación for bringing this forum to Marbella, and to our fellow panellists at Jamena Construcciones and Prestige Expo Group for a genuinely substantive and honest exchange of views.

If you are considering buying or selling prime residential property on the Costa del Sol, we would be glad to share what we see from the inside of this market, the opportunities, the nuances and the long-term perspective that comes from nearly two decades of operating here.