Spain Real Estate News

Sourece:  Reuters.com

As well as showcasing a huge range of bargain Spanish properties for sale at next week’s A Place in the Sun Live, The Crest Group will also be holding a live auction of distressed Spanish properties at the show.

Most of the properties are bank owned, having already gone through the repossession process, and guide prices will be as much as 70% below peak prices.

Successful bidders will be required to pay a refundable deposit of £1,000 which will secure the property for a period of ten days during which time they can choose to visit Spain to view the property at first hand and meet the bank to arrange their mortgage or alternatively the mortgage application and sales contract can be issued direct from the bank in question without the necessity of a visit.

Read more at www.aplaceinthesun.com

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is on a clean up mission to try to put his country’s mortgage market back on track.

Gone are the days when local newspapers had adverts offering fake P60s for credit purposes but it could take some time for the lending industry to become more mature, according to experts.

The Spanish government is, for example, forcing takeovers and mergers to accelerate the change. Banco Sabadell acquired CAM bank for €1 in December 2011 and BBVA acquired Unnim bank for the same price this month.

Whilst Spain didn’t have official subprime mortgages in the same manner as the United States, throughout the late 2000s it did fall victim to unrealistic mortgages being handed out by greedy banks with the help of unscrupulous mortgage advisers, real estate agents, lawyers, surveyors, valuers and accountants.

The consequence today is banks having to repossess a significant number of homes making them huge real estate owners and putting a strain on their balance sheets, particularly as Rajoy is asking banks to make additional provisions.

Read more at Propertywire.com

Spanish banks that voluntarily sign on to a newly approved code of good practices will be required to restructure the mortgage debts of certain distressed borrowers and is some extreme cases repossess properties and write off the debt.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative administration on Friday approved a decree law containing the new guidelines, the deputy premier, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, told reporters at a press conference.

She said the new rules seek to “mitigate the dramatic plight of more than 1.5 million families that have all their members out of work” and are on the road to foreclosure and eviction due to a lack of income to cover their mortgage payments.

The new measures will serve as a buffer for families “at risk of social exclusion,” the deputy prime minister said.

She estimated that a total of 300,000 foreclosures have occurred in Spain since the onset of the financial crisis.

For families to qualify for relief, the affected home must be their only residence, all the members must be unemployed and mortgage payments must represent at least 60 percent of household income.

Read more at laht.com

Spanish labor unions mounted their first big challenge to the country's new government Friday, calling a general strike for March 29 to protest new labor reforms and austerity measures.

The labor reforms, passed by decree last month and confirmed in Parliament Thursday, slash the cost of firing workers and ease conditions under which they can be dismissed. Salaries can be lowered unilaterally, and companies can lay off employees at the cheapest level of severance pay by reporting three straight months of declining revenue.

Workers Commissions and the General Workers Union called the stoppage following separate executive committee meetings.

As Spain's economy roared, Spanish farmers were able to sell their land for giant profits. But when the economy tanked, farmers who were poised to sell the land were stuck with higher tax bills and no one looking to build new developments.

For about a decade, beginning in the late 1990s, Spain went on a building binge.

Any farmer lucky enough to see his agricultural land rezoned could sell it for huge profits and turn in the pitchfork forever. But the real estate bubble burst in 2007.

Navalcarnero, about 20 miles southwest of Madrid, was caught off guard.

AUAN, 5th March 2012

The new decree, recently approved by the Junta de Andalucía, to regularize an estimated 300,000 illegal buildings in Andalucía has now come into force. The regional government claims that the decree will standardize the planning situation of these properties and allow access to basic services such as electricity and water.

Access to electricity and water
Commenting on this development a spokesperson for Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora No (AUAN), an association of homeowners that has long campaigned on behalf of those who purchased illegal houses in good faith said “In the short term we hope that our town councils take advantage of the ambiguities within the text of this decree to give services to as many people as possible, even if it is only for one year”.

Second class homes
“In the long term, however, we believe that the decree is not the solution we had all hoped for. It creates a second class tier of ‘assimilated’ housing labelled as illegal on the land registry until such time as they become part of a fully approved and implemented urban plan, if that ever happens. The housing market is bad enough without having to pay for the privilege of having a stigmatised house”.

There is a better deal to be had
“Our advice on the matter?” the spokesperson concluded. “Small associations of homeowners such as AUAN in Almeria funded a campaign with their own money to drag these concessions from a reluctant government whilst everyone else sat on their backsides complaining about their lot. We now say there is a better deal to be had.”

There is an election coming
“And remember, there is a regional election on the 25th of March. A change of government, a distinct possibility according to latest polls, could present the chance of a fairer deal for homeowners who purchased in good faith. Why rush?”

A RETIRED couple face after their dream home was deemed to have been built illegally.

John and Jenny Harvey moved from Hunmanby to Spain and invested £210,000 – their life savings – in a two-acre farm in the white-washed Andalucian village of Lanjaron.

But now they must undo thousands of pounds of renovations to their property – or face a £68,000 fine, the local authority has ruled after investigating a breach of planning laws.

The decision “has ruined our lives” said Mrs Harvey, 62, a former legal executive for Martin Summers in Hunmanby.

The Harveys say they have been “persecuted” and are the victims of “deceit, fraud and theft”. They insist work to upgrade a farm building to a two-bedroom villa was carried out in line with planning permission.

Read more at Scarborough Evening News

As the pain of Spain's property crash continues to hit people hard, a nationwide movement is now fighting back.

Regular protests are being staged as banks repossess the homes of those who cannot afford loans taken out when the economic outlook was more rosy.

Young Spanish couples and immigrants are the two groups worst affected. Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos recently announced that the government would hold talks with Spain's banks to try and find ways to lessen the impact of the repossessions.

Read more at bbc.co.uk

Towering apartment blocks, complete with swimming pools and playgrounds, loom over empty streets, weed-filled lots and gaping excavation pits. The lone bank in this mega-development nicknamed "Manhattan" closed two years ago and most storefronts are bricked up.

Apartments galore are for sale here and prices are plunging.

More than 13,000 apartments were supposed to go up to create a mini-city for 30,000 people just 45 minutes outside of Madrid. But only 5,100 were built, many are uninhabited and regular Spaniards who bought them as investments are now competing to offload them for huge losses.

Spain's real estate crash and economic implosion have turned what was supposed to become a vibrant suburban paradise for young Spanish couples and their children into one of the most visible monuments of the country's boom gone bust. Such modern-day ghost towns have become a familiar part of the Spanish landscape, abandoned shells left to slowly decay.

The number of foreclosure proceedings skyrocketed during the economic crisis. Nearly 530,000 were granted by courts from 2008 through September of 2011, most to banks taking homes, housing developments and vast tracts of land for residential and commercial real estate projects that may never become reality.

Read more at Huffington Post