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The Coordenadas Institute Ranks Spain’s Top 20 Property Developers

24 July 2017 – El Confidencial

The awakening of the residential sector in Spain has brought with it a large number of property developers, who are promising to construct thousands of homes over the next three years. The problem is in the detail, understanding who is going to promote each one of those homes.

That analysis is what the Coordenadas Institute of Governance and Applied Economics, an independent study centre, has just developed. It has identified the Top 20 largest companies in the country, ranked according to the number of homes that they are planning to construct between now and 2020.

At the top of the list is Metrovacesa, the property developer controlled by Santander, BBVA and Banco Popular, which is planning to bring 12,600 homes onto the market over the next three years and which, together with Neinor, Aedas, Vía Célere, Corp and Pryconsa are the only ones that already own all of the land they need to build these homes.

Moreover, the company led by Jorge Pérez de Leza and controlled by three Spanish entities, breaks the leadership ranks of the large international funds, which are behind the bulk of the companies that comprise this Top 20 and are already negotiating with local companies to tackle the purchase of land to allow them to achieve the current housing forecasts.

In order to complete the 80,000 homes that these companies plan to develop together, the Coordenadas Institute has taken into account both developments in progress, as well as those that may be developed on the available land and forecast new land purchases, which have been extracted from various sectoral sources.

Neinor Homes (Lone Star), with 10,250 homes; Aedas Homes (Castlelake), with 9,850; Vía Célere (Värde), with 6,200; and Aelca (Värde) with 5,750 homes, complete the first five positions in the ranking which contains just two companies linked to the large listed construction groups: Acciona Inmobiliaria, with 4,500 homes; and Realia (FCC) with 1,650.

Another company with a differential sign is the Catalan firm Corp, since it is the only member of the ranking that does not have a national presence, rather it focuses all of its efforts on its own autonomous region, where it plans to construct 3,000 homes.

Some of the main innovations in this new property developer sector, besides the hegemony of the large funds, are: the family structure of the bulk of the domestic property developers (Amenábar, Quabit, Pryconsa, Lar, Ibosa…); the greater demands on the banks to grant mortgage financing to local investors, with requirements such as having pre-sales of more than 50%; and the focus on the client.

“It is clear that the Spanish property development sector has learned some important lessons from the crisis and now operates with completely different criteria. A key factor is the focus on the client, which for the first time in a long time has become an essential piece of the real estate business. Property developers that know how to connect with what the client needs are going to be assured survival in the market; those who don’t know, will disappear”, said Jesús Sánchez Lambás, Executive Vice-President of the Coordenadas Institute.

Of those that survive, many will do so by making the leap onto the stock market, where Neinor and Quabit are already listed; they will soon be joined by Aedas, Vía Célere and Metrovacesa. Nevertheless, many more will follow in their footsteps, given that the institute forecasts that between eight and ten companies will be listed on the stock market within the short term.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake