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Spain will not recover from the property crisis in 2011 and not yet in 2012 and 2013 at least. Moreover, the most pessimists like the IMF forecast a long period of eight more years of crisis. The latest data does not give room to hope.

The mortgage market is getting tighter and tighter in Spain. The rate has dropped in four consecutive month since May 2010 compared with the same period of 2009. The fall in May was -2,9%,  in June was -10,8%, in July was -6,8% and August -3,4%.

Repossessions are becoming a major problem. The direct effect of repossessions is that it enlarges even more Banks portfolio putting extra pressure on the market. During the 2010/1Q repossession reached a new peak since 2007: 27,561. Banks now have a repossessed property assets portfolio worth 20.5 billion euros.

Articles related to this post

• Confusing statistics
• The mortgage strategy of the Banks
• Are Spanish Banks a junk box of properties?

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It could be dozen of thousands of Spanish mortgage borrowers who have been affected by Swaps products commercialized by Spanish Banks between 2007 and 2009. So far, there are more than 4,000 already registered as affected, but only Banks know how many there are. La Caixa, Santander, Bankinter, Caixa Galicia and BBVA are the ones that most widely sold this product.

1) Do not sign any extra document linked to the mortgage.

2) Make sure you understand the cancellation cost properly -both total and partial cancellation. It usually varies from 0.5%-1% on top of the remainder of the mortgage.

Read the full article about Spanish Banks mortages

The Spanish Brick

Banesto is the first Spanish Bank to launch a really positive campaign to sell units in city areas at prices of crisis.

Surely there are good bargains and we hope the rest of the Banks will follow the move soon.

Banesto has announced to start commercializing today a total of 600 properties in urban areas at half price of the market value. The 600 properties will be launched in three packages

For the first time in Spain, property developers have recognized in public that it could be better to demolish developments that were built up in the Spanish property boom and will never be sold.

From our point of view, the ˝junk stock˝ should be excluded from the market since they are a aggravating factor for the normal recovery of the market, rather than demolished. ″Junk properties″ that were built up by speculators in the peak of the boom are now a burden (toxic assets) for the real surplus of property that potentially can be sold in a reasonable period of time according to the reality of the market.

Why not to demolish them? This is because demolition will increase the economic cost of the development, and also generate an environment cost and a moral cost that Spain can not now afford.

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In this article you will find a link that takes you to a very useful map of Spain property price with average figures per square metre in each region and each postcode. The data corresponds to September 2010.

To view the article in full and instructions how to use the map

Imagine somebody buys a Spanish apartment which has still not been completely built. When signing the purchasing contract the buyer pays to the developer a down/ advance payment of several tens of thousands of euro. Several months after the agreed upon delivery time the developer has already finished building the apartment but he has still not obtained the first occupancy license (authorization issued by the municipality which allows to use the apartment). Can the buyer recover his down payment?

Read the whole article in The Spanish Brick