Spanish property developer debt is 324 bln euros
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 @ 2:25 PM
MADRID, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Spanish property developers' debts with banks at the end of September were worth around a third of the country's gross domestic product, the Spanish Mortgage Association said on Monday.
A spokeswoman said data up to the end of the third quarter showed hard hit property developers owed 324 billion euros ($458 billion) as a property crisis continued to worsen.
Property promoters have faced a torrid time since a property bubble burst in 2007.
The mortgage association said many property developers could not pay back their debts and that, in turn, was affecting the credit rating of Spanish banks which have largely emerged unscathed from a severe recession and credit crisis.
Spanish house prices fell just over six percent last year but many analysts still say the market has further to fall and data may underestimate the true scale of the slide so far. [ID:nLDE60E0VV] (Reporting by Carlos Ruano; Writing by Nigel Davies; Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 0.7072 euro)