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Santander Totta Has 5,000 Properties for Sale; Most Inherited from Popular

1 August 2018

Santander Totta has 5,000 properties to sell after having already sold real estate worth 85 million since the beginning of the year. But, at the end of the year “nothing will be left,” Vieira Monteiro guaranteed. The CEO of the bank also said that “it is too soon to say that we are heading for a real estate bubble because of the current strength in the market.”

At a press conference presenting the group’s results, António Vieira Monteiro, the executive-president of Santander in Portugal, said that the bank currently has 5,000 properties in its portfolio to sell. The majority came together with Banco Popular Portugal, which is being merged into Santander Totta. However, Mr Vieira Monteiro says that “nothing will be left by the end of the year.” The banker was unable to specify whether all of the properties originated with defaults on loans. He said, however, that the bank had sold 85 million euros worth of real estate (without specifying the number of properties sold) since the beginning of the year, adding that the bank booked gains on the sales after accounting for provisioning.

The bank’s CEO also said he considers it “too soon” to tell if there is a bubble in the Portuguese real estate market.

“I think it is too soon to say that we are heading for a real estate bubble because of the current strength in the market. Until relatively recently the growth was fundamentally in the city centres, it didn’t reach to the suburban areas – now it is beginning to be felt in those suburban areas,” Mr Vieira Monteiro said.

“We have seen growth in both prices and investment in the construction sector,” Santander Totta’s president said during the presentation. “But I do not think we can say that the growth is completely abnormal,” he said.

The president of Santander Portugal stressed that the increase in credit is always done in a “careful” and “conservative” way,” so as not to create any situations that may be considered dangerous in the future.”

Original Story: Jornal Econômico – Maria Teixeira Alves

Photo: Cristina Bernardo

Translation: Richard Turner