We’re Past the Bottom of the Spanish Property Market
March 9th, 2010
German magazine Bild (equivalent to The Sun in the UK) has ruffled Greek diplomatic feathers this week. In an open letter to the Greek PM during his trip to Germany, Bild pointed out some of the differences between the two countries:
“Here, people work until they are 67 and there is no 14th-month salary for civil servants. Farmers don’t swindle EU subsidies with millions of non-existent olive trees.”
Bild makes its point with characteristic Sun subtlety, but news of protests in Spain, Portugal and Greece against raising the retirement age to 67 reminded me how some citizens of those countries have yet to accept responsibility for their own futures.
Spanish civil servants enjoy employment for life – it’s virtually impossible to get fired. They also enjoy a 13th month extra salary – (not performance-related). Meanwhile, tax evasion is a national pastime and the tax-office (staffed by civil-servants, remember) only go after the easy targets – individuals and businesses who are already paying tax.
Spain needs pension reform, employment reform and tax reform – but I doubt whether Zapatero has the stomach or backbone for very much of that.
(Steps down from soapbox)
Mark Stucklin reports on how the Spanish property market grew at the end of 2009. It’s not a massive uptick, but it’s better than a further decline.
Looking at the number of estate agents advertising on Kyero.com, we reached ‘bottom’ during September last year. Since then the number of advertisers has steadily increased – and we’re now back to the same number as this time last year.
Regarding traffic to Kyero.com, we’re now over 50% up – a doubling of traffic in January and February this year compared to the same period last year.
If what’s happening with Kyero is an early indicator of what’s happening in the Spanish property market (and I think it is), we can expect Q4 2009 to have marked the bottom of the Spanish property market – in terms of volume of transactions at least.
The rest of this week’s news centred around the fragility of the Spanish economy and I’ve included the most enlightening articles this week. The best, I think is from the NY Times – a well reasoned and comprehensive explanation of the challenges facing Mr Zapatero.
Martin Dell, Kyero.com
