Spain Real Estate News

Banco Popular said profit fell by almost one fifth in 2011 as the Spanish bank made 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion) of provisions against bad property loans.

The bank on Wednesday said profit fell 18.7 percent to 479.6 million euros , just above a consensus analyst forecast of 477 million euros.

Spanish banks have hundreds of billions of euros of unsaleable land and property and unrecoverable loans to bankrupt developers sitting on their balance sheets, four years after a housing and construction crash.

Read more at Reuters.com

Santander, the euro zone's biggest bank, reported a sharp drop in annual profit after it set aside money against foreclosed Spanish property, anticipating government demands that lenders recognise heavy real estate losses.

Spanish banks have hundreds of billions of euros of unsaleable land and property and unrecoverable loans to bankrupt developers sitting on their balance sheets, four years after a housing and construction crash.

Santander's grim outlook for the property sector on Tuesday comes a day after data showed Spain's economy looked set to slip into recession after contracting for the first time in two years in the last quarter of 2011.

Read more at Reuters.com

In case you missed it, the government has extended their "50% IVA" deal when buying a brand new home in Spain, for the entire course of 2012.

It means that instead of paying the normal 8% IVA (the equivalent of VAT in UK) you now pay 4%. 

The deal was previously run during the last quarter of last year but obviously they thought this would be a good incentive to continue to keep the new stock rolling, even if it does, it seems, contravene EU law.

Make of that what you will.

And remember that this only applies to brand new properties that have never gone through the completion process.  There are still thousands of properties out there which are brand new but were completed on, either by the developer of the banks.

This IVA reduction only applies to those properties that have never completed.

As Tesco would say..."Every little helps".

A growing number of experts believe that the Spanish property market is showing signs of recovery following the well documented economic crash which has plagued numerous global property markets.

At least that's how Taylor Wimpey Espana sees the upcoming year in Spain.

With years of experience in building some of Spain's most highly regarded properties, Marc Pritchard, sales and marketing manager of Taylor Wimpey España, suggests that the Spanish market has now reached the bottom and will move in a positive direction this year, highlighting a number of aspects that will aid Spain's recovery.

Sale prices in Spain for quality properties in prime locations were stable in 2011 and Pritchard indicates that this trend will continue into 2012 while properties in less popular inland locations that have reduced infrastructure or no views will drop further in price.

Pritchard predicts that a greater number of lifestyle buyers will enter the second home market this year with very few looking for rental returns. He suggests that the average age of the property buyer will rise up to 55 years old, signaling that lifestyle attributes will be of greater importance in 2012.

Read the full story at WorldPropertyChannel.com

According to Bankinter’s latest report on the housing market in Spain, housing prices will fall an additional 6% up to the end of 2013, making an adjustment of 30% in real terms from their peak, and only begin to rise again in early 2014, when the economy is capable of generating employment and demand recovers.

Read more at ibtimes.com

Spain's likely new centre-right government is studying steps to jump-start a real estate market that has dragged on the economy ever since a decade-long bubble burst almost five years ago.

The People's Party, expected to win Sunday's general election by a generous margin, is proposing more tax breaks for home buyers and measures to stimulate the rental market. But experts say a policy on banks' worrying exposure to troubled property assets is also needed.

Following are some facts about Spain's property sector:

Read more at Reuters.com

Benalup used to be thriving but now has the worst levels of unemployment in a country on brink of economic collapse.

The shiny Audis and BMWs that still line the narrow streets of Benalup are a reminder that this Andalucían country town once boasted the greatest number of luxury cars per head in the south-western province of Cádiz.

These days this charming place, set bull-rearing countryside inland from Gibraltar, holds a different kind of record: not only the worst unemployment rate in the country, but the worst in Europe.

"I don't know whether they can fix this," said 19-year-old Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, one of hundreds of young people who dropped out of school and now drift between part-time work, training courses and the dole queue. "I've picked asparagus and worked in a packing factory, but the jobs never last. The future is screwed."

"Everyone our age is out of work," agreed Nora Pérez, 22, as she waited for the hearse bringing her grandmother to her funeral in the picturesque square of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. "My father went to Germany when he was young. Our generation may emigrate as well. Some of my friends have already left."

Read more at Guardian.co.uk

Spanish banks, saddled with 176 billion euros ($243 billion) in “troubled” holdings in the real-estate industry, face an “uncertain setting” because of a weak economy that may mean their bad loans will rise, the Bank of Spain said.

Read more at Businessweek.com

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA faces a test of its 18-month-old assertion that defaults have peaked as growth stagnates in a Spanish economy that still accounts for about 60 percent of its loan book.

“Maybe they can keep this line going that bad loans have peaked for a bit longer but we all know things have got worse,” said David Moss, director of European equities at London-based F&C Investments. “They may have been better lenders than other Spanish banks but they can’t escape the market they’re in.”

Spain’s second-biggest bank has brought down its bad-loans ratio in the country after Chief Operating Officer Angel Cano said in April 2010 that asset quality was probably going to be “stable from now on.” While Chairman Francisco Gonzalez reiterated in February that the “worst was over” for BBVA, a deteriorating economic outlook will push up bad loans, said Moss, who holds the bank’s shares as part of the 8.5 billion euros ($11.8 billion) in non-U.K. equities he manages at F&C.

BBVA may say third-quarter earnings dropped 24 percent to 861 million euros when it publishes results tomorrow before the market opens, according to the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of five analysts.

The bank was among Spanish lenders that had their debt ratings cut on Oct. 11 by Standard & Poor’s, which cited concerns about a “dimming” outlook for the economy and the prospect that bad loans will keep accumulating during 2012 and potentially into 2013.

Read more at Businessweek.com...

Brits are still the largest group of overseas buyers that purchase properties in Spain, new research has revealed.

Taylor Wimpey Espana published its sales figures for September, showing that Brits are responsible for 30 per cent of transactions, followed by Spanish and Russian buyers taking a 20 per cent share of the market each.

Germans comprise ten per cent, the company noted, while other nationalities to express an interest in Spanish real estate include the Swiss, Swedish, Dutch and Belgian.

In addition the property developer pointed out that its sales figures rose in September by 15 per cent, while enquiries were up by 45.5 per cent compared to the same month a year earlier.

Marc Pritchard, sales and marketing director of Taylor Wimpey Espana, commented: "September was a great month for us and October has been following in the same footsteps, with positive sales in the first 15 days."

Despite the rising sales for the firm, the Spanish real estate sector is still suffering, with the most recent government figures showing that, on average, property values dropped by 5.5 per cent in the third quarter, compared to the same period in 2010.

Source: Property Showrooms