Some experts believe that the stock of unsold properties will be lowered significantly in 2012, as selling the remaining stock is the priority of the real estate sector in Spain. Both developers and financial institutions have a critical need to reduce their property portfolio to meet the payment of debts with creditors, in the first case, and to reduce their real estate assets and thus their arrears, for banks and savings banks.
So far, this has not been possible, at least in the amount and speed with which the industry would have liked, due to economic hardship, shortages in granting loans by institutions and also because property prices in general have not had the significant price drops as other markets like the American or the British, where prices have fallen since the crisis began more than 20%.
However, as they say in Spain, hope is the last thing to be lost and in the sector there is also space for optimism. According to a real estate study made by the Institute of Business Practice (
IPE), the 'stock' of unsold homes has been reduced by 23.6% this year, reaching 611,250 homes.
The study also informs that the new developments segment will begin its recovery in 2013 and it is expected that between this year and next, to have around 100,000 new homes being built.
For this to happen, according to the IPE, the demand for non-residents plays a key role. Above all the one coming from Germans, British and Scandinavians, who are acquiring a second home in the coastal areas.
A circumstance that is already occurring, according to latest figures from the Bank of Spain, foreign investors bought properties in Spain last year amounting to 4.748 million euros, up 27% in 2010. The figure of 4,000 million euros had not been exceeded in the last three years and a growth rate like this, has been not recorded since the last real estate boom.
In addition, the IPE also states that given the tightening of credit conditions, there has been an increase in the purchase of homes in cash and it is expected that in 2012 the number of the mortgages signed will be a third of those formalized in 2006.
Source: ElConfidencial.com
