Over the last decade I’ve spent numerous summers vacationing in Spain. I’m incredibly fond of Spanish culture, its architecture (especially Gaudi) and the great food (tapas) and Rioja. Spain is still home to the single largest destination for global tourists.

My mother, who was born in Casablanca in 1940, fled Morocco a year later as Rommel’s Afrika Corps made headway in Northern Africa. The family subsequently moved north to fascist Spain and settled in Barcelona. British General Montgomery, of course, later defeated Rommel and quashed Hitler’s vision to conquer Egypt and the Middle East.

It was easy to see Spain was in the midst of a massive real estate bubble in the 1990s and 2000s. Cranes were popping up everywhere and, by the time the property boom ended three years ago, construction represented almost half of Spanish GDP.

Spanish banks are heavily invested in domestic real estate but also continue to hold sizable interests in Latin America, especially its biggest banks like Banco Santander and BBVA. But the cajas, or mortgage banks, are the big problem; this is where Spain’s funding problems might run into trouble because bad loans still plague this sector.

In 2011, Spain is projected to raise €300 billion ($400 billion dollars) to meet its ongoing financing obligations. The country is already paying a higher rate to attract financing but much less than Greece or Ireland.

It’s still not clear Spain will seek to restructure its debt. Though I think a bailout is imminent, the country’s net foreign debt as a percentage of GDP is less than most other foreign countries in the OECD and much less than Ireland or Greece.

Thus far, the European Central Bank, or ECB, has failed to purchase Spanish debt. The bank, which is now actively buying peripheral eurozone debt in Ireland, Portugal and Greece, will eventually have to start buying Spanish bonds to keep rates from rising much higher.

What seems likely is the European Financial Stability Fund ,or EFSF, (or its successor) will have to bail-out the country at some point if the cajas market implodes or if Spain fails to raise the money it needs to finance and rollover existing debt.

As an investor, I’ve been bullish on high quality Spanish real estate in the south or in the Costa del Sol region.

Puerto Banus, where I’ve spent many summer holidays, is now On Sale.

With the EUR poised to head much lower over the next 12-24 months and real estate prices likely to head even lower, this is bargain-basement time for value investors. Prices for many high-end residential properties have crashed by a third or more since 2007.

You don’t see cranes littering Costa del Sol, but Spain will always attract tourists and they don’t make beachfront property anymore.

Spain should avoid a default but will require ECB assistance and a bailout of some sort. If it does, the real estate sector in the south should form a bottom sooner than the rest of the country. The time to buy is when a nation is in the midst of a crisis. The time is now.