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Real Estate Company, Reyal Urbis, calls in the receivers with debt of 3.6 billion euros

SpainHouses.netFebruary 25, 2013February 25, 2013Leave a comment

Some five years after the bursting of Spain’s massive property bubble, the casualty list of companies and individuals that have fallen victim to what former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan termed “irrational exuberance,” in this case for bricks and mortar, continues to swell.

Real estate firm Reyal Urbis on Tuesday told the National Securities Commission (CNMV) that it was calling in the receivers after failing to reach an agreement with its creditors to refinance 3.6 billion euros in debt in what is the second-biggest failure in Spanish corporate history. The biggest collapse was also a property company: Martinsa Fadesa, which eventually managed to escape being wound down after reaching an accord with its bankers to pay back 7.2 billion euros in liabilities over 10 years.

In a later statement to the CNMV, Reyal Urbis said it remained in talks with its creditors to find a solution to its financial problems. It said that the solution would revolve around setting up a subsidiary to which practically all of its assets and liabilities would be transferred. The option also remains open to creditors of canceling loans granted to the group in exchange for property assets, an arrangement known as dation in payment.

The CNMV suspended trading in Reyal Urbis shares, which closed Monday at 0.1240 euros, giving it a market capitalization of a mere 36.2 million euros.

Reyal Urbis’ creditors include the asset-management firm Sareb, the so-called bad bank set up by the government to absorb the toxic property assets of the country’s banks, an arrangement that may also help out the sclerotic real estate sector.
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Spain’s ‘bad bank’ begins business 1

SpainHouses.netFebruary 18, 2013February 18, 20131 Comment

Last week, Spain’s so-called ‘bad bank’, which was set up in December 2012 to take over toxic property and land assets from the country’s troubled financial institutions in order to ‘cleanse’ their books, started promoting its first batch of properties.

The new state-run bank, ‘Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria’, known by its acronym SAREB, began its operation by putting 13,000 properties, once belonging to rescued lender Bankia, on the market.

In total, by the end of last year, SAREB had taken on 37 billion euros worth of assets from four nationalised banks. In exchange, the banks received EU rescue funds as well as bonds.

These assets, purchased at knock-down prices are to be sold on to investors over a 15-year period, offering a minimum return of 14 per cent.
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Rental Market Flexibility Law: Debtors’ Register

SpainHouses.netFebruary 11, 2013March 31, 2020Leave a comment

Via an amendment to the Rental Market Flexibility Law, the Public Works Ministry plans to set up a register of people who have been sentenced for breaching their obligation to pay rent. The idea behind the proposal is to increase the number of homes on the rental market by reassuring owners who might wish to let their properties but fear the possibility of an encounter with tenants who are conflictive or do not pay their dues.

The government has suggested that the data on the register would be cleared after six years and that homeowners would only be able to consult the list when they are in the act of drawing up a rental contract.

A debtors’ register is a risky idea, one that sounds simple enough to set up but which in fact is hard to operate with accuracy. First off, there could be difficulties as regards the Data Protection Law unless the appropriate safeguards are introduced to make sure the information remains private and is not published elsewhere.

But the biggest threat in practical terms is that errors on the register are not corrected swiftly so that blameless individuals suffer the effects of doubts over their reputation when they attempt to rent an apartment or apply for a bank loan.
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Mortgage market still languishing in the doldrums

SpainHouses.netFebruary 4, 2013February 4, 2013Leave a comment

The number of home loans granted by banks in November of last year fell for the 31st month in a row, with the pace of the decline accelerating, according to figures released Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The INE said the number of mortgages awarded dropped 31.6 percent in the penultimate month of last year to only 19,115. That was just above the lowest figure ever recorded, which was the previous month when they declined 14.4 percent to 19,105.

The average mortgage granted in November dropped 4 percent from a year earlier to 105,216 euros.

In the first 11 months of the year, the number of home loans awarded by banks fell 33.1 percent from the same period a year earlier, while the total amount of credit granted declined 38.5 percent.

With over a quarter of the population out of work, demand for mortgages has been muted, while credit conditions have tightened significantly. According to Public Works Ministry figures, house prices have fallen by 27.1 percent from their peaks at the start of 2008 when a decade-long property boom started to unravel. However, the falls have been insufficient to run down a huge pile of unsold housing built up during the boom.

Tax incentives to buy the family home have also been removed as a result of the government’s austerity drive.

Via: elpais.com

Ibiza and Mallorca bucking the trend in Spanish property market

SpainHouses.netJanuary 28, 2013March 31, 2020Leave a comment

The worst appears to be over for the top end of the property market in Spain’s Balearic islands with demand increasing especially from wealthy overseas buyers.

Americans, Russians and Chinese buyers are increasingly attracted to the lifestyle offered on Mallorca and Ibiza.

Throughout the property downturn demand for holiday homes in Mallorca has remained high, largely due to the mix of nationalities involved. The island is two hours flying time from most northern European cities and more than 80% of buyers in Mallorca are not Spanish. Properties on the island are also popular with Germans, Austrians, Swiss and buyers from Scandinavia.

Overseas buyers are attracted by the pretty inland villages, beautiful coves, marinas and beaches, imposing mountain ranges and 24 golf courses. Upmarket design is also helping to attract buyers. The Philippe Starck designed superyacht marina Port Adriano, Nikki Beach and Jumeirah Port Soller Hotel and Spa all opened in 2012.
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Decree to make properties legal still has no effect in La Axarquía

SpainHouses.netJanuary 21, 2013March 31, 2020Leave a comment

Decree 2/2012 of the Junta de Andalucía, which aims to regulate buildings which exist on land which is not classified for construction, is failing to convince the owners of illegal properties in the countryside of La Axarquía region. In fact, ten months after the new regulations came into force, their effect has been practically non-existent as the majority of owners of illegal houses have not applied for them to be made legal. Nor are the local councils playing their part. Very few of them have drawn up the report on illegal settlements which will help in making the properties legal.

This is a document which is required by the decree, which stipulates that in the absence of an Urban Plan the Town Halls should supply details of their future planning, to identify the places which have a high concentration of buildings on land not zoned for construction. Nor have most of the councils drawn up the regulations about minimum conditions of habitation and sanitation with which all illegal properties will have to comply.
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Russians Love Spain

SpainHouses.netJanuary 14, 2013January 15, 2013Leave a comment

Tourism is one of the few sectors that have become a source of optimism for the Spanish economy. The number of foreign visitors to Spain increased throughout the whole of 2012, with fourth quarter figures the highest, while the average spending by these visitors has also risen.

But there is one group of foreign visitors to Spain that has broken all the tourism records: Russians.

Between January and November last year, the number of Russian visitors increased by 42 percent in comparison to that same period in 2011. For the first time, over one million Russians visited here last year. What Russians spent in Spain also surpassed the cash forked out by other foreign tourists.

Nevertheless, for every Russian tourist, there are 13 who come from Great Britain.

From January to November, 1.17 million Russians came to Spain, according to data from the Industry, Energy and Tourism Ministry. In 2010, some 605,276 people from the former Soviet Union arrived in Spain.

Britain continues to lead the Spanish tourism sector, with 13 million visitors last year, followed by Germany, with nine million; France, with 8.5 million; and 3.4 million coming from Italy.
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Permits for new homes doubled in Marbella 1

SpainHouses.netJanuary 7, 2013January 7, 20131 Comment

Even though the construction sector is still in a state of coma on a national level, Marbella continues to show signs of movement with regard to property, according to the annual report issued by the Town Planning Department. In 2012, the council issued licences for the construction of 312 homes, compared with 147 in 2011. “This shows that there is activity in Marbella and the town continues to be the focus of attraction for many investors” comments Town Planning councillor Pablo Moro.

Other information appears to back this up, such as a 20 per cent increase in the number of first occupancy licences. These relate to 993 properties with a value of over 138 million euros. With regard to permits which have been issued for minor works, there was an increase of 10 per cent last year, bringing the figure to 2,218, and a budget of 23 million euros.

Another example of the town's economic strength is that about twenty strategic investment projects have been made public, among them the initiative by Grupo Peñarroya to build a tourism complex on a 350 hectare site in Las Chapas area. “These are projects which will give a boost to Marbella and could become the exit point from the crisis”, says Town Planning director Mario Ruiz.
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Property sales expected to increase in Spain in 2013

SpainHouses.netDecember 31, 2012December 31, 2012Leave a comment

The last quarter of 2012 saw a positive end to the year with a flurry of British and other international buyers taking advantage of falling prices and a reduced VAT rate on new properties in Spain.

The higher end of the market also seems to have performed well and at the lower end of the market what are regarded as bargain prices are attracting buyers, especially those with cash as getting a mortgage in Spain is not easy.

Mortgage tax relief has been abolished and VAT on new homes goes up to 10% on 01 January. The temporary reduction of VAT to 4% has boosted the number of overseas buyers.

Foreign buyers have tended to dominate the market in 2012, mainly Belgian, French, Norwegian, Swedish, and a welcome resurgence of more British buyers over the last three months.
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Chinese are drawn to Málaga by new promise of residency for buyers

SpainHouses.netDecember 24, 2012December 23, 2012Leave a comment

At the moment it’s nothing more than a declaration of intention by the government.

Nevertheless, since the announcement of the plan, three weeks ago, to give residency to non-EU foreigners who buy a home in Spain for more than 160,000 euros, the stagnant property market on the Costa del Sol has started to move a little.

With around 15,000 new homes without buyers, a national property market paralysed by the crisis and Europe on a go-slow, estate agents see this new measure as their last chance to offload stock and to get things moving again.
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