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March 13th, 2006
If you escape often to your second home in the Loire Valley or enjoy spending August sipping sherry at tapas bars off the Plaza Mayor, you might want to consider setting aside some euros ahead of time to finance your excursions. The tough part is working out the best ...
Continue reading Find a Good Home for Holiday Money
September 20th, 2006
They do exist, but you’ll need to put in plenty of legwork, says Matt Dunn. Barcelona is a fast-paced, vibrant city, with a property market to match. And while the decision to buy in the Catalan capital is an easy one to make, trying to secure the property of your ...
Continue reading Barcelona Bargains
December 1st, 2006
From Ecuadorean nannies to Romanian builders, millions of immigrants to Spain are buying their first homes and buoying the country’s cooling house market. Spain’s immigrants have quadrupled to over four million since 2000, helping the country’s population grow as much in the last five years as in the previous 30. ...
Continue reading Immigrants Help Buoy Spanish Market
May 8th, 2007
Could you use another gin and tonic? Signs that the Spanish housing market is about to implode are jangling nerves among some Brits. A lot of previously smug owners of holiday homes, not to mention deeply tanned expats, are worried sick. Last week, shares in Astroc - a Valencian property developer ...
Continue reading Pain in Spain is Mainly on the Wane
June 18th, 2007
Javier Usua and Ruth Graneda never got out of the car when they visited Sanchinarro and Las Tablas, two of Madrid’s biggest new suburban developments. The concrete-block buildings and empty streets were all they needed to see. “We came to look at apartments but found ghost towns,” said Usua, a ...
Continue reading Ghost Towns Appear As Boom Ends
June 19th, 2007
A few years ago Spain was in the grip of a property boom, and foreign buyers were falling over themselves not to ‘lose out’. Much of the heat has now gone out of the market, not least because a constant stream of bad news has shaken foreign buyer confidence in ...
Continue reading Spanish Property Market 2006 – 2007
May 21st, 2008
VERY few regulators emerge from this crisis looking good. The Americans did not see the poison from unregulated mortgage originators seeping into the credit system. The Germans did not spot the huge exposures to off-balance-sheet entities at various Landesbanks, and the Swiss missed the grenades strapped to UBS's investment-banking arm. Following ...
Continue reading Curbing Bank Greed
August 13th, 2008
Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, has issued a major alert on the health of Spanish banks, warning that a replay of the ERM crisis in the early 1990s could wipe out the capital base of weak lenders exposed to the property crash. "A momentous economic slowdown is now under way. We ...
Continue reading Morgan Stanley issues alert on Spanish banks
September 22nd, 2008
Wall Street is in turmoil and the rest of the world looks on with trepidation. Thousands of miles away, banks across Europe are being forced to face up to the fact that there is more pain to come for them. Deciding which will be the last bank to collapse in ...
Continue reading European Banks Also Face More Pain
September 23rd, 2008
This week's news is largely concerned with the implications of Europe's banks in the wake of Lehman Brothers joining the list of banking casualties. If you have money tied up in a Spanish bank, there are words of comfort and concern here: "Although Spain is home to two of Europe's strongest ...
Continue reading Spanish Property News Review 23rd September 2008
