Archives for February 2009
February 10th, 2009
I would love to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting between Spanish President Zapatero and six of the largest Spanish banks last week (Spanish Leaders Blame Bankers). Mr Zapatero is quoted as saying "I will tell them, with all my power and conviction, that this is not ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks: Cause or Cure?
February 10th, 2009
The US economy is poised to be smacked by another wave of mortgage defaults that could cause as much damage as the subprime meltdown. According to Credit Suisse, $1,000bn (£694bn, €772bn) of Alt-A and Option ARM mortgages – the dubious loans used to propel home sales through the final years of ...
Continue reading Subprime Crisis – Part 2
February 9th, 2009
Planning approvals in Alicante Province, home to the Costa Blanca, fell 74% in 2008, according to the local College of Technical Architects. After a decade of covering the coast in concrete, building activity fell more in Alicante than anywhere else in Spain, where the average fall was 60%. There was a ...
Continue reading 74% Drop in Alicante Planning Approvals
February 6th, 2009
Overwhelmed by a deepening economic contraction and a sharp rise in unemployment, the Spanish government has pointed the finger at the banks, blaming them of making the situation worse by tightening credit. “Banks become scapegoats,” business daily Expansion wrote in a headline on Wednesday, one day after official data showed the ...
Continue reading Spanish Leaders Blame Bankers
February 5th, 2009
Spain's banks have withstood the financial crisis better than their European peers, but their uniquely high provisions against bad debts will start to run dry unless the economy improves next year. As big names in U.S. and European banking have buckled, Spanish banks have so far withstood defaults from failing property ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks Better – But Still Vulnerable
February 4th, 2009
The number of people out of work in Spain rose 6.35 percent to 3,327,000 in January compared with the previous month, the highest level for 12 years, the labour ministry announced on Tuesday. By the end of January there were 3,327,801 unemployed workers in Spain, up 198,838, the highest number since ...
Continue reading Spanish Unemployment Hits 3.3M
February 3rd, 2009
We recently launched a range of property guides about the Spanish Costas. We tried to cram everything we know about an individual Costa on to a single web page - so that you could use them as a starting point for your Costa property research. The first problem we had ...
Continue reading More Information = Better Property Market
February 3rd, 2009
Spain’s developers finished 2008 with 1.05 million newly built homes in stock, according to a new study by José García-Montalvo, a professor at the Pompeu Fabra University. Based on last year’s average sales rate this inventory of unsold new homes will take more than 3 years to clear. Some regions are ...
Continue reading 3 Years to Clear 1M Spanish Property Glut
February 2nd, 2009
Spanish developer Taylor Woodrow de Espana has converted 16 unsold properties on its Las Encinas de los Arqueros and Los Robles de los Arqueros projects in Andalucia into fractional units, after its research found that buyers in the country are looking for cheaper property. The developer believes that with a drop ...
Continue reading Spanish Property Developer Converts to Fractions
