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Wanda Group still wants to refurbish Edificio España

SpainHouses.netMarch 7, 2016March 7, 2016Leave a comment

Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena has said that the Chinese-owned Wanda Group still wants to refurbish the capital’s landmark Edificio España building and that it will continue working with City Hall to come up with a viable solution to doing so without demolishing its protected façade and flanks, as the group had originally wanted.

The announcement, which came following a meeting between the leader of the leftist Ahora Madrid bloc and Wanda’s head in the capital, Michael Qiao, on Tuesday, contradicts recent reports initially published by Cinco Días newspaper saying that Wanda had on Sunday told Carmena that it was pulling out of the project.

The mayor denied that such a weekend meeting had ever taken place.

According to municipal sources, Wanda chiefs have communicated their intention to continue with the project and a “new round of negotiations” has been opened with City Hall technicians to solve the problems.
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Spanish Property Market Recovery Set to Continue in 2016

SpainHouses.netDecember 14, 2015December 14, 2015Leave a comment

Looking ahead to 2016 it looks as if the Spanish house market will continue to recover but the latest data shows it is still a rollercoaster and growth very much depends on location.

According to the latest figures from appraisal company Tinsa prices are still increasing with its latest index up by 1.9% in November year on year.

However, the increase is somewhat exaggerated by an unusual fall in prices last year and on a monthly basis prices were down a fraction compared to September.

The Tinsa index shows, however, that the recovery is broad based as house prices rose in all the areas covered. Prices in Barcelona and Madrid were up by 3%, coastal areas popular with overseas buyers saw price growth of 1.4% and the Balearic and Canary Islands 0.2%.

But the recovery still has some way to go as since the peak of the market house prices are still down 41.3% in general, and 48.2% on the coast.

The Balearic Island saw price growth of 0.9% followed by the Canary Islands up 0.5%, Andalucía up 0.3%, Navarra and Castilla-La Mancha both up 0.1%.
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Living in Madrid is 43% more expensive than in Extremadura

SpainHouses.netSeptember 28, 2015March 31, 2020Leave a comment

Living in Spain’s most expensive region, Madrid, costs 43% more than in its cheapest, Extremadura, according to a study presented by Jaume García, former head of the National Statistics Institute and now a professor at Catalonia’s Pompeu Fabra University.

What’s more, the study, which was commissioned by the Catalan regional government, shows that taking the cost of living into account reduces the disparities in income among the regions.

Without applying any kind of correction, the Basque Country is the Spanish region with the highest GDP per inhabitant (€30,051), while Extremadura has the lowest (€15,133) – a difference of 98%, almost double.

After taking the cost of living into account, the Basque Country remains the region with the highest per capita income (€27,895), but Andalusia moves into last place with €18,058. At the same time, the difference between the top and bottom regions drops from 98% to 54%, according to the report.

The study uses data from 2012 to calculate the purchasing power parity (PPP) of Spain’s different regions – a measure that allows the analysis of an economy’s level of production or wellbeing, cost of living, and poverty while leaving out such factors as variations in prices.
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60% of Madrid evictions are from public flats sold to investment funds

SpainHouses.netJune 22, 2015March 31, 2020Leave a comment

Six out of every 10 evictions in the Spanish capital are taking place in public housing units that have been sold over recent years by the Madrid regional government and City Hall to investment funds, according to data included in a report from the Treasury Ministry.

According to the data in the ministry report, of the 111 eviction cases registered between February and June of this year, 65 were in houses that had been sold by Madrid administrations.

Between February and June, the report states, there were 50 evictions that took place in properties sold by the Municipal Company for Housing and Land (EMVS) to an investment fund. Another five evictions took place in flats sold by the Madrid Housing Institute (Ivima) to another fund; and 10 more were related to housing from the EMVS and Ivima. In total, 65 of 111.

In terms of evictions carried out by banks, the report registers 17, which works out at 15%, while another 29 evictions were brought about by private landlords. There were also 73 evictions from illegally occupied properties.
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Banks are selling off repossessed homes with tenants inside

SpainHouses.netJune 8, 2015June 8, 2015Leave a comment

Around 36 percent of homes being sold by Catalan lenders to real estate firms and investment funds have a tenant inside, according to sources from the Catalonia regional government.

The properties in question have all been repossessed by banks from borrowers in default, who then cut a deal with the bank: by turning in the keys, the home reverted to the lender, the mortgage was canceled, and the homeowners became tenants instead.

But now, Catalan authorities fear that those families may end up being evicted by the new owners of the properties.

To stop this from happening, the regional government is considering purchasing a portfolio of homes in partnership with the municipalities where the 774 families affected by the problem have their main residence.
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Property recovery in Spain

SpainHouses.netJanuary 5, 2015December 31, 2019Leave a comment

The property sector in Spain will recover, but at a different rate across the country.

Looking towards the country’s bigger cities will give an indication of the forthcoming tendency. For example, in Madrid, prices have readjusted by around 40% and the market has started to move. This means that investors have begun to take action, realising that prices are not going to drop any further.

A similar occurrence is taking place in Barcelona and in a number of the Basque capitals.

However, the major surprise is that economists and real-estate professionals believe that house prices in popular tourist coastal zones, have also bottomed out and are on their way to recovery. This is true for areas such as the Costa del Sol, where prices fell before and have recovered before others in the Levante region.

According to a report by global consultancy firm Deloitte, there are now 20 provinces that are well on their way to recovery and are returning to normality with regards to property.
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Right to Adequate Housing in Spain 1

SpainHouses.netAugust 4, 2014August 4, 20141 Comment

From Human Rights Watch. The Spanish government has failed to take adequate measures to avoid and alleviate the impact of the housing and debt crisis amid economic down-turn in Spain. Since the economic crisis began in 2007, banks have foreclosed on over 500,000 properties under a procedure that leaves individuals and families saddled with significant debt and no realistic pathway towards discharging their debt. Immigrants, women heads of household, women victims of economic abuse, and children are among the vulnerable groups affected by the crisis.

Spain’s social crisis around evictions and debt arise in a context of decades of government policies aggressively promoting home ownership and borrowing and inadequate efforts to ensure an appropriate and affordable stock of rental housing and sufficient investment in public housing. Irresponsible lending, unfair terms in mortgage contracts (such as exorbitant default interest rates), unscrupulous behavior by intermediaries such as real estate agencies, and the lack of oversight during the boom economic years contributed to the current situation.
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Rise in Property Sales in Spain

SpainHouses.netJuly 28, 2014April 2, 2020Leave a comment

Property sales in Spain increased by 12.6% in May compared with the previous month, with the Balearics seeing the biggest increases, according to the latest data from the National Statistics Office.

The data also shows that new home sales were down 8% from a year earlier and second hand homes up by 16% which could be good news for those who have been unable to sell.

The biggest annual increases in May were in the Balearics with a rise of 33.1, Cantabria was up 30.4%, Andalucia was up 10.7% and Catalonia was up 3.1%.

The biggest decreases were reported in Castilla-La Mancha with a fall of 15.2%, Galicia with a fall of 6% and Comunidad de Madrid was down 5.5%.

Meanwhile, the latest figures from the General Council of Notaires shows a sharp rise in the number of Chinese buyers in Spain, suggesting that they are responding to the golden visa rules which grant citizenship to non European Union nationals who invest a minimum of €500,000 in real estate.
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Spain: Magnet for Global Bargain Hunters

SpainHouses.netJune 23, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

As one of the most moribund housing markets in Europe, Spain has become a magnet for global bargain hunters. Real estate prices are down as much as 50 percent from their peak during a housing bubble, and investors from Asia to the United States and Britain are flocking to Spain to try to catch the uptick.

British Airways flights to Madrid are packed with London-based real estate executives. The hedge fund Baupost is buying shopping centers, Goldman Sachs and Blackstone are buying apartments in Madrid, and Paulson & Company and George Soros’s fund are anchor investors in a publicly listed Spanish real estate investment vehicle. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts just bought a stake in a Spanish amusement park complex. Big-name private equity firms and banks are teaming up with and competing against one another on huge loan portfolios with names like Project Hercules and Project Octopus.
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Spanish Property Market is on the Verge of Recovery

SpainHouses.netJune 16, 2014April 2, 2020Leave a comment

The downward trend in the property market in Spain is drawing to a close and it is unemployment that is hindering a full recovery, according to the International Monetary Fund.

With unemployment still hovering around 26% the real estate sector is unlikely to move into full recovery mode just yet, says the report author James Daniel, head of the IMF’s Spain mission.

But the report does point out that the country’s economy has ‘turned the corner’ after economic improvements took hold in the second half of last year and continued in the first quarter of 2014. Indeed, it adds that the Spanish economy is now growing at its fastest pace since 2008.

It also says that labour reform and wage moderation are helping turn job destruction to job creation. Compared to a year before, unemployment fell in the first quarter of 2014 and jobs, as measured by social security affiliations, increased by about 200,000 in April.
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