Tag: AEV

Tinsa, Sociedad de Tasación and Gloval: Leaders in the Appraisal Sector in Spain

The turnover of the main appraisal companies associated with the AEV amounted to €274.3 million in 2019, down by 4% compared to the previous year.

The turnover of the 22 most representative appraisal companies in the sector, those associated with the AEV, amounted to €274.3 million in 2019, which represented a decrease of 4% compared to the previous year.

According to the AEV (‘Asociación Española de Análisis de Valor’ or Spanish Association for Value Analysis), this decrease is ‘consistent’ with the total volume of appraisals carried out, which decreased by 5.27% compared to 2018, to a total of 1,100,000 appraisals in 2019. The data comes at a time when the Bank of Spain is warning that the absence of transactions due to the market shutdown is preventing the performance of realistic valuations. As such, it is advising against applying the comparison method.

Tinsa & Sociedad de Tasación are the Banks’ Preferred Appraisal Companies

17 May 2018 – Expansión

Last year, the banks commissioned appraisals for properties worth €200 billion. The valuation of these assets was performed by a well-nourished group of entities that have been authorised by the Bank of Spain to undertake these types of operations.

Tinsa and Sociedad de Tasación swept the board in this sector, with market shares of 28.7% and 13.9%, respectively, according to the total revenues for the sector for 2017, which amounted to €284 million, according to data from AEV, the main trade association.

The appraisal sector was particularly badly hit by the consequences of the real estate crisis, given that their valuations, which in some cases did not reflect the reality, contributed to the inflation of the real estate bubble which then burst.

The appraisals performed last year represent one third of those recorded in 2007 when the figure reached €600 billion according to data from the Bank of Spain.

There was also a lack of professionalism in this sector, on which the Bank of Spain has imposed several sanctions in recent years, in some cases on firms that have now disappeared.

More control

Following the crisis, the banks also liquidated their own appraisal companies and, since then, independence and professionalism have reigned.

“The Bank of Spain has increased its control over the sector in the last three years, something that is good news and that works in our favour”, says Juan Fernández-Aceytuno, CEO at Sociedad de Tasación. By way of example, he comments that the supervisor now “requires us to provide 350 information fields for every appraisal”. (…).

In another change, Santander commissioned its appraisals from half a dozen different companies last year, namely: Tinsa, Eurovaloraciones, Ibertasa, Tasaciones Hipotecarias, Krata and Hispania de Tasaciones.

The group explains in its accounts for last year that its strategy, when it comes to choosing these entities, is governed by “the requirements of independence, neutrality and credibility to not undermine the reliability of their valuations” (…).

BBVA works with fifteen appraisal companies including Tinsa and Sociedad de Tasación. The bank confirms that it engages these entities due to “their reputation, independence and recognition in the market, given that they are capable of providing valuations that most appropriately reflect the reality of the market in each region” (…).

Bankia is the entity that engaged the fewest appraisal companies in 2017. It hired Tinsa, Gesvalt, Tecnitasa, UVE and Arco Valoraciones. Sabadell, by contrast, reports in its accounts for last year that it worked with around 30 firms.

Original story: Expansión (by E. del Pozo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

AEV: Spain’s Appraisal Companies Invoiced €283.8M in 2017, Up By 17% YoY

18 April 2018 – Eje Prime

Appraisal companies are thriving in Spain. According to the latest data from the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (AEV), the turnover of the 23 associated appraisal companies during 2017 amounted to €283.8 million,  up by 17.1% compared to the previous year. This upward trend is experiencing an acceleration that almost doubles the turnover growth rate recorded between 2015 and 2016 (9.2%).

Moreover, this ascending inertia is observed in the great majority of the data analysed. The number of real estate appraisals performed increased by 18% to reach 1.25 million appraisals, corresponding to a total appraised value of €389.5 billion. The 650,000 appraisals that were issued for the purpose of mortgage guarantees stand out, in particular, since they represent 24% more than the number carried out during the previous year, according to data from the association.

The number of appraisals conducted without visiting the interior of the property grew substantially, by 67% to be precise, as did the number of appraisals performed online, although at a more moderate rate (by 15%).

In terms of the regional distribution of house appraisals by autonomous community, Murcia recorded the highest growth with respect to 2016, up by 38%. It was followed by Valencia (36%), Cantabria (31%), the Balearic Islands (25%) and Cataluña (25%).

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Charme & Miura Finalise Purchase Of Valtecnic & Ibertasa

25 May 2017 – El Confidencial

A major new operation is brewing in the property appraisal sector in Spain. The private equity firms Charme Capital Partners and Miura Private Equity are about to close the purchase (to acquire a majority stake) of the appraisal companies Valtecnic and Ibertasa, according to sources close to the operation. Some finishing touches still need to be completed, such as obtaining approval from the Bank of Spain.

Charme and Miura are joining forces to acquire these two real estate services firms, which will continue to operate independently in the domestic market. In other words, the investment funds will co-invest in and take control of both companies, but will not merge them. In addition, the management teams of the two appraisal companies will continue at the helm as well as in their roles as minority shareholders.

Last year, Charme came very close to acquiring Tinsa, the largest company in the property appraisal sector in Spain, but that firm ended up being purchased by another private equity firm, Cinven, which paid Advent €300 million. Meanwhile, Miura invested in Group BC through its first fund until the end of 2015 – that company is dedicated to the outsourcing of services from financial institutions (mortgage advisory, recoveries…).

These operations represent the indirect entry of private equity firms into the real estate sector and their clear commitment to an upwards cycle. According to data from the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (AEV), the number of property appraisals grew by 13% during the first quarter of 2017, to 228,879 in total, worth €75,620 million, up by 3.1% with respect to the same period a year earlier. (…).

The number of appraisal companies has been cut in half

The appraisal sector was hit hard by the burst of the real estate bubble although, like in the property development sector, to the extent that the mortgage activity is resuming, so the volume of appraisals is also showing signs of recovery. Nevertheless, the crisis took a serious toll and led to the disappearance of lots of companies. Whilst in 2011, there were 58 appraisal companies, by the end of 2016, that figure had fallen to 37.

Nevertheless, in recent years, several companies, above all in the real estate consultancy sector, have broken into this market with their own appraisal businesses. Such was the case of CBRE Valuation Advisory, Aguirre Newman Valoraciones and UVE Valoraciones in 2011. More recently, another consultancy firm, JLL, obtained approval from the Bank of Spain for its appraisal business, which operates under the JLL brand.

Valuations

On the other hand, like in the property development sector, the activity of the appraisal companies has not been without controversy, especially for the role that they played in the real estate bubble. The appraisal companies have been repeatedly accused of producing inflated appraisal values at the height of the boom and of continuing to do so even in the face of a depressed market.

In addition, concerns regarding the transparency and independence of these entities caused the Bank of Spain to force the banks and savings banks to disassociate themselves from the appraisal companies in terms of ownership. That decision resulted in the disappearance of several players, such as Tabimed (Banco Sabadell) and TVG (Abanca). Others changed activity, such as Sivasa (Banco Santander), whilst others still, such as Tasamadrid (Bankia), were sold.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

What’s In Store For The Housing Market In 2017?

28 December 2016 – Cinco Días

“The real estate market can look forward to a new smooth and long expansionary cycle”. That is the consensus of the majority of analysts who have spent the past few days preparing their end of year report and forecasts for next year. Although the forecast figures are unlikely to coincide exactly, the fact is that the trend is unanimous. Provided there are no major macroeconomic changes, in other words, provided employment continues to grow and interest rates continue to remain a minimum levels, all of the experts consulted, be they property developers, construction companies, intermediaries such as the API, notaries, registrars, appraisal companies or bankers, agree that: 2017 will be better than 2016.

This does not mean that there are no clouds on the horizon. For the consultancy firm Knight Frank, the main risk is the political context at home and, to a lesser extent, overseas. “During the months when there was a caretaker Government, many projects were frozen; now the main uncertainty is whether the new Govenrment will manage to approve the budgets”, said Ernesto Tarazona, Managing Partner of Residential and Land at Knight Frank.

In this way, provided there aren’t any new political upheavals, 2017 will be the year in which more homes are sold and constructed and at higher prices. In terms of production, experts calculate that if this year around 70,000 new homes are going to be finished, then next year that figure should increase to around 100,000. Meanwhile, in terms of transaction volumes, next year could be the first year since 2008 when we see more than half a million homes being sold once again, according to Tinsa.

On the other hand, the forecasts vary the most when it comes to house prices, with predicted increases ranging from 2% to 5%. The VI Observatory of the sector, compiled by the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (AEV), together with the Head of the Applied Economics Department at the University of Alicante, Paloma Taltavull, and a group of 21 experts states that the evolution of house prices will be contained due to two essential factors: the stock that still needs to be sold or leased, of which they calculate that 25% is owned by the banks; and the weakness in terms of demand that still persists across the majority of the country. In the opinion of these experts, prices will end this year with nominal increases of around 3.8%, and will continue to rise by around 3% in 2017. Other sources, such as Bankinter, raise that percentage to 5%, due to the booms currently happening in the real estate markets in Madrid and Barcelona, where house prices are rising at double-digit rates given the scarcity of supply of new homes.

What all of the experts seem to have rejected is that the market may generate a new bubble over the medium term, given that: house sales are growing in a sustainable way, in line with new mortgages; and they are doing so in regions with the greatest economic activity and highest levels of job creation. Moreover, the recovery in terms of the promotion of new homes will act as a buffer to prevent one-off price spikes amounting to anything more. (…).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Raquel Díaz Guijarro)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb & The Banks’ RE Arms Commission 3x More Appraisals

2 November 2016 – Cinco Días

During the first half of this year, Sareb and the real estate subsidiaries controlled by the banks commissioned appraisals for 845 properties per day. That figure represents a threefold increase compared to the same period last year. In other words, a real boom in the number of appraisals being performed for real estate portfolios in the sector. This sharp increase has been driven by the Bank of Spain, in its quest to ensure that asset prices reflect the reality of the market, with the dual aim of facilitating their sale and preventing deceptive quantifications in the value of assets on the balance sheets of entities in the industry.

Two specific pieces of regulation have been developed to acheive these aims. Firstly, new accounting regulations for Sareb, which was notified last October that it must reappraise its entire portfolio at market prices in just a few months: at least 50% of its properties had to be reappraised in 2015 and the remainder this year.

Secondly, the Circular 4/2016, whereby the institution governed by Luis María Linde strengthened the coverage and provisions that the financial institutions have to make and which requires them to perform an updated valuation of the real estate collateral securing their loans.

Although the financial institutions have already started to review the value of their balance sheets, for the time being, the regulations have had more impact on the field of appraisals involving Sareb. That is according to the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (AEV), which groups together the main appraisal companies in Spain, which are responsible for performing 90% of the appraisals conducted in the country. According to the association, during the first half of the year, Sareb and the asset management subsidiaries of the major Spanish banks commissioned 152,166 appraisals in total.

That figure far exceeds the 47,256 appraisals that the same group of companies requested during the first half of 2015. The rate has tripled in just one year, with the intermediate step taken during the second half of last year, when 119,942 appraisals were requested, after the so called bad bank was notified about the contents of the Bank of Spain’s new accounting legislation and the short calendar for its implementation.

From the appraisals carried out for Sareb and the banks’ real estate companies during the first half of this year, 46,895 correspond to full appraisals, which are those that include a visual inspection of the property (even if internal access is not possible) as well as the performance of the typical checks for mortgage valuation purposes (such as checking that the property exists, ensuring that the urban planning situation is up to date, etc.), say sources at AEV.

Another 16,676 valuations were performed using automatic templates. Sources at the AEV explain that this type of appraisal tends to be used to carry out valuation updates for large groups of properties using statistical methods.

Finally, another 88,525 appraisals were performed using other, automated, mass-valuation methods, including mathematical models, online valuations and the so-called desktop valuations, which are performed remotely using photographs and street views such as those supplied by Google Street, for example. (…).

The figures published by AEV show that the analysis of these portfolios has resulted in low valuations this year: the 47,000 properties valued during the first half of 2015 had a combined appraisal value of €11,380 million, whereas the 150,000 properties valued during the same period in 2016 have a combined appraisal value of €21,654 million. In other words, triple the number of assets correspond to just twice the appraisal value.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Juande Portillo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Property Appraisal Sector Grows For 2nd Year Running

20 April 2016 – El Mundo

The combined turnover of the 23 appraisal companies that belong to the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (‘la Asociación Española de Análisis de Valor’ or AEV) amounted to €221.4 million in 2015, up by 8% compared with 2014. This is undoubtedly a clear sign of the recovery in the real estate sector. Moreover, these figures show that activity in the sector grew for the second year in a row.

This upwards trend was also reflected in the number of property appraisals performed, which rose by 28.6%, to 872,480 operations, worth €313,932 million.

Of that total, 461,131 valuations were performed on homes, and 457,569 complete appraisals were carried out for mortgage purposes, 19.7% more than in 2014, and the value of those efforts increased by 25%.

The 23 appraisal companies, which account for 90% of the sector by revenue, also carried out five million statistical or other valuations, which contributed significantly to the increase in turnover.

In the words of the AEV’s secretary José Manuel Gómez de Miguel, the aggregate data published by our members allows us to affirm that “these two years of positive data show that there has been a turnaround in terms of appraisal activity in our country, which, along with many other indicators, may be extrapolated to activity in the real estate sector as a whole and to mortgage lending”.

“This data”, added Gómez de Miguel, “also alludes to the flexibility and adaptability of the large, medium-sized and small companies that make up the different areas of the sector”.

Ranking by turnover

The table in the article lists the ranking of the 23 appraisal companies that belong to the AEV, by turnover. The Top 5 (Tinsa, Sociedad de Tasación, Valtecnic, Ibertasa and Gesvalt) account for more than 65% of the total turnover, after they reported very similar figures to last year.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake

The RE Recovery Intensifies As House Prices & Permits Rise

27 November 2015 – Expansión

According to official data from the Ministry of Development, the average value of private homes amounted to €1,476/m2 at the end of Q3. This represents a YoY increase of 1.4%, or 1.8% in real terms, after accounting for inflation. This represents the fourth consecutive increase, which means that house prices have now been rising for a whole year.

Two other statistics published yesterday supported the intensification of the start of the real estate recovery. Firstly, the number of mortgages granted to buy homes increased by 20.2% in September, according to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE). Secondly, the number of permits granted for the construction of new homes soared by 30.5% during the first nine months of the year, to 36,031, the highest figure since 2011, according to the department led by Ana Pastor.

“The increases that we are seeing in terms of the number of mortgages being granted and homes being sold are a reflection that now is a good time to buy a home”, explains Beatriz Toribio, Head of Research at Fotocasa. “The decrease in house prices, above all in the second-hand segment, the opening up of the credit tap and the increased competition between financial institutions to offer the best mortgages are reactivating the market”, she added.

Cumulative decrease

Effectively, the second hand market, which comprises homes that are more than five years old (previously it comprised homes that were more than two years old, but now the banks have so many older homes that have never been lived in that the threshold was changed) decreased in Q3. Specifically, prices fell by 0.1% to €1465.90 /m2, on average. The average value of new residential properties (those completed during or since 2010) amounted to €1,741.90/m2, up by 1.6% YoY.

The cumulative decrease in average house prices since they reached their peak (in Q1 2008) is 29.8%, according to historical data from the Ministry of Development. That figure exceeded 30% in 2014. In real terms (including the variation in CPI), the cumulative decrease amounts to 34.1%.

The average appraisal value of homes surveyed by the companies that form the Association of Value Analysis (AEV), which serves as the Government’s benchmark for the evolution of house prices, increased in 12 autonomous regions and decreased in 5 during Q3 2015.

The highest increases were recorded in Madrid (with a YoY increase of 3.5%), the Balearic Islands (3.2%), Aragón (3.1%), La Rioja (2.9%), the Canary Islands (2.4%) and Navarra and Valencia (2.1%). The highest decreases were recorded in Asturias (-3.6%) and País Vasco (-1.4%).

It is worth noting that in general terms average house prices fell by 0.1% QoQ in July, August and September.

The provinces in which house prices rose by the most were Salamanca (4.2%), Zaragoza (3.9%), Jaén (3.6%), Madrid (3.5%), the Balearic Islands (3.2%), A Coruña (3.2%), Palencia (3.1%) and Soria (3%).

The other big news for the real estate sector, revealed yesterday, was that the number of permits granted for the construction of new homes soared by 30.5% between January and September. 70% of requests related to block properties, which amounted to 25,238 in total, representing a YoY increase of 34.8%. The number of requests to construct family homes rose by 21.5% to 10,777.

This data indicates that there will be an increase in construction activity over the next two years. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Juanma Lamet)

Translation: Carmel Drake

AEV: Activity Is Returning To The Home Appraisal Sector

17 March 2015 – El Economista

Activity is returning in the home appraisal sector, with increasingly higher growth each quarter; meanwhile the real estate market is stabilising, according to data from the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (AEV).

Thus, the number of building projects valued, which amounted to 179 in the first quarter of 2014, increased to 224 in the second quarter and to 367 in the third quarter.

Similarly, new appraisals of individual homes, which experienced year-on-year growth of 7% during the first half of the year, accelerated to 10% in the third quarter.

Prices are not rising in the same way

However, the recovery in the sector is not being accompanied by an increase in prices, according to the AEV. The average appraisal values for housing blocks continued to decrease to September 2014, from an average value of €1,342/m2 in the first quarter down to €1,262/m2 in the third quarter, i.e. a decrease of 5.9%.

Meanwhile, data regarding detached homes (viviendas unifamiliar) showed stability during the course of the first nine months (of 2014).

For the secretary of AEV, José Manuel Gómez de Miguel, this data “provides statistical confirmation of the recovery in the residential sector and of the solvent demand for credit that had already begun to be felt in 2014”.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake