Benidorm Fever: TM Sells 15 Apartments in Just One Day

10 May 2018 – El Confidencial

More than 40 homes have been reserved in just two weeks. And fifteen of them in the first 24 hours. TM Grupo Inmobiliario, the owner of the largest batch of land located one street from the beach in Benidorm, one of the most sought-after markets along the coast at the moment, has put the first units up for sale of what is going to be its most ambitious project ever.

In January, the Alicante-based company acquired 165,000 m2 of land in Benidorm, which will initially, in its first phase, be home to two buildings comprising 132 homes each, containing two-, three- and four-bedrooms. The appetite for buying homes in the city has been so great that in just two weeks, 15% of the units that are going to be built in this first phase have already been reserved.

The prices of the two-bedroom homes range between €275,000 and €325,000, whilst the prices of the three-bedroom homes range from €325,000 to €400,000. To give us an idea, on the market at the moment, you can find properties ranging from small apartments costing just €20,000, to detached homes costing as much as €4 million. The reality is that, since its origins as a tourist destination, Benidorm has always been suitable for all kinds of budgets.

In fact, the town boasts the most expensive property prices per square metre in the region, with an average of €1,585/m2 – for new build and second-hand homes – above the prices paid in neighbouring Altea, Calpe and l’Alfàs del Pi, according to data from Tinsa. Although prices have fallen by almost 44% since their peak, it is one of the places in Spain that is enjoying a fair wind. In the last year, prices have risen by 11%, according to the latest report from the appraisal company about the coastal market.

The land, acquired in January this year, is located one street back from Playa de Poniente in Benidorm – right opposite the In Tempo skyscraper, marketing of which will also begin shortly – and around 1,200 homes are planned for the site. In addition to the residential area, the overall project will also include commercial and social use plots. Moreover, the land is located next to the Sunset Drive development, another one of TM’s projects in Benidorm, which has been completely sold.

The project was chosen in accordance with the bases of an ideas tender held for that purpose, to provide an avant-garde serene and long-lasting image, characteristic of the environment in Benidorm. The winning studio was Gea Arquitectos, which has already collaborated with TM on other developments (…).

The buildings are going to be located on the highest part of the plot and their layout is going to be designed to maximise the sea views as you go up (…).

Given its design, TM’s project is reminiscent of Promora’s Delfín Tower, which is going to occupy the last available plot on the beachfront in Benidorm. The main difference between the two stems from the fact that the latter is a luxury housing project, comprising 44 homes containing two-, three- and four-bedrooms, spread over 22 floors. Almost 50% of the properties have been sold and the project holds the record for the most expensive home ever sold in Benidorm. According to different sources, the home is located on the 16th floor and the buyer, a foreigner, paid just over €2 million for it.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Domo Gestora Invests €33M to Build c. 100 Homes in Tres Cantos (Madrid)

27 April 2018 – Eje Prime

New challenges lie ahead for Domo Gestora. The property developer has just acquired a new plot of land in Madrid on which it will build around one hundred homes in Tres Cantos, according to sources at the group speaking to Eje Prime. The real estate manager, which specialises in housing cooperatives and delegated management, is going to invest €33 million in this development.

Domo is going to manage the project after one of its cooperatives acquired the plot where it is going to build the development. It will consist of 101 apartments in a gated community with a swimming pool and common areas, whose quality stands out due to the proposals in terms of efficiency, sustainability, child safety and accessibility. Construction work is expected to start in June and all of the homes are expected to be handed over in the middle of 2020.

Domo Gestora is currently operating in the market with a dozen developments. In Madrid, where the group has already handed over more than 500 apartments, the company has 700 homes under development, whilst in Guadalajara, Badajoz, Málaga and Granada, it has 81, 26, 23 and 24 homes under construction.

The most noteworthy developments include one located on Paseo de la Castellana, where Domo is building around twenty terraced homes and one located on Calle Raimundo Fernández Villaverde, which is going to comprise 334 homes.

In addition to the homes under construction, the company has also handed over more than 500 homes in recent years, located in places such as Valdebebas, where it has built 200 apartments; Vallecas, with around fifteen family homes; and Arroyomolinos, with a development of 43 family homes, amongst others.

In total, since Domo Gestora has been active, it has built more than 200,000 m2 of properties, handed over around 1,000 homes and managed more than 2,000 assets. Domo has also managed more than €108 million of contracted work and has accessed more than €300 million of financing.

Domo Activos, the Socimi

In addition to its core business, Domo Gestora has also had to focus on its Socimi in recent months. Last year, the company launched the first property developer Socimi dedicated to medium-sized investors. The business model of Domo Activos involves the acquisition of land for the development of buildings destined for rent, which are then sold off after three years of ownership.

The return on that project, once the divestments have been made could reach 10% per annum, according to the company’s estimates. Until the home is sold and for the period that the building is leased, investors receive the profit resulting from the rental income in the form of a dividend.

Currently, the largest project being promoted by Domo Activos is the development that it is constructing in Madrid, in El Ensanche de Vallecas. This building is going to comprise eighty rental homes, according to explanations from the group.

The next steps for the group are to look for new land on which to build more homes under its Socimi. The company has already identified opportunities in Spain and is now hoping to increase its financial muscle in order to carry out the purchase of the new land through a capital increase of up to €15 million. Domo Activos is going to focus these acquisitions on Madrid, Málaga and Valencia, in the first instance, but is also on the lookout for plots in Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada and Zaragoza.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Palma de Mallorca to Ban All Tourist Apartments From July

24 April 2018 – El País

From July onwards, homeowners in Palma, on the Balearic Island of Mallorca, will not be allowed to rent out their apartments to tourists. The capital of the popular Mediterranean destination has adopted a pioneering measure, which will see the definitive prohibition of tourist flats right across the city. The local government team – a leftist alliance between the Socialist Party (PSOE), the local group Més per Mallorca and the anti-austerity Podemos – has taken this decision after commissioning several studies on the matter, which revealed that the supply of unlicensed tourist flats increased by 50% between 2015 and 2017 to reach 20,000 beds across the city. In Palma, which is Spain’s eighth-largest city by population, only 645 properties used for short-term vacation rentals have proper licenses.

The government team will approve initial holiday rental zoning plans at a meeting on Thursday, which will then be subjected to public scrutiny before being put to a final vote at a council session in July. At that point, tourists seeking this kind of accommodation will no longer be allowed to rent apartments in multi-family residential housing. Instead, they will only be able to stay in detached, single-family homes, which are being left outside the ban. Yet even these properties will be off limits if they are located on protected rural land, near the airport, or in non-residential areas such as industrial estates.

The move follows a reform of tourism legislation by the regional parliament of the Balearic Islands in August last year. That reform banned vacation rentals in apartments but left it up to local authorities to decide which neighbourhoods to apply it in. In the end, the city of Palma has decided to consider the entire municipality a “single zone” and so the ban will apply in all parts of town. The decision is meant “to protect residents,” said mayor Antoni Noguera.

Studies commissioned by city officials show that 48% of tourist apartments are offered for seven to eight months of the year, meaning they are not available for long-term residential rentals. “There is a parallel between the evolution of vacation rentals and the rise in rental prices,” said José Hila, the local chief of city planning. Rent in Palma has soared by 40% in recent years, making it the second most expensive Spanish city after Barcelona for residents who rent.

“Tourist accommodation affects the makeup of buildings and neighbourhoods, and it also affects social harmony,” said Hila. A report by the Citizen Ombudsman’s Office shows a rise in the number of complaints filed by residents due to problems with tourists who use these apartments, typically related to noise. There were 42 complaints in 2014 and 192 in 2017.

Pioneering initiative

Mayor Noguera is convinced that this measure, which is pioneering in Spain, will set the standard to be followed by other cities. “Palma is a bold and decisive city. We have agreed this on the basis of the general interest, and we believe that it will create a trend in other cities when they see that finding a balance is key.” said the mayor. “All European cities are being transformed from one day to the next by this type of offer,” said planning chief Hila.

Currently, in the Balearic capital, there is a supply of around 11,000 tourist rental beds, of which 645 have licences, all for family homes. Before the new regional legislation was approved in August, the number of beds amounted to 20,000 but the high fines established by the law – of up to €400,000 – led to the withdrawal of adverts from users of many of the large platforms (…).

Original story: El País (by Lucía Bohórquez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

In Tempo’s New Owner will Put its Apartments on the Market this Summer

17 April 2018 – Levante EMV

The new owner of the In Tempo building in Benidorm, the firm SVP Global, is planning to finish the building work over the next 12 months and start marketing the 269 homes this summer. SVP Global is preparing the final plans and marketing approach together with the Valencian investment manager Net de Gerrers. The sales prices of the homes have not been set yet, but they are expected to be in line with the average for the market in Benidorm, which stands at around €2,500/m2.

The Company for the Management of Assets Proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (Sareb) sold the debt associated with the In Tempo building to SVP Global last autumn for more than €60 million. The bad bank took over the loan amounting to €108 million corresponding to the tallest building in the Community of Valencia five years ago. The buyer, which is headquartered in the USA, was advised by Evercore, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo Abogados and Net de Gerrers.

Sources close to the operation indicated that the project was almost finished (93% execution rate) and pointed out that Net de Gerrers is acting as the manager of the investment fund SVP in the operation. The building is in a “perfect condition” despite the fact that four years have passed since the construction work was suspended. The owners have decided to introduce improvements to the original plans to make the homes more attractive.

The owners are going to market the property “using the building’s own brand. It is a common formula that is used for iconic buildings in New York”, said the same sources.

The In Tempo building project, which is the tallest residential property in Spain, was blocked when the Alicante-based property developer Olga Urbana filed for creditor bankruptcy. The suspension of payments left 137 creditors trapped and a bankruptcy liability amounting to €141 million.

Original story: Levante EMV (by R. Ferrando)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Le Collectionist Arrives in Spain to Lead Luxury Holiday Rentals

5 April 2018 – Expansión

Luxury made in Spain. The French group Le Collectionist has arrived in Spain through the purchase of the holiday rental company Bonder & Co, which has 400 exclusive properties under management and twelve years of experience in the sector. The firm is preparing to extend its footprint with new acquisitions and the incorporation of new destinations with the aim of becoming the leader of the high-end holiday rental market.

Le Collectionist currently has 12 offices around the world and 2,300 properties in around one hundred destinations across France, Spain, Greece, Morocco and Israel. “Following a round of financing last June, we expect to have 100 offices by 2020. Bonder & Co was the first purchase but the plan is to acquire local experts and leaders around the world to create a global company with local knowledge”, explains Paloma Bonder, founder of Bonder & Co and Director General of Le Collectionist in Spain, speaking to Expansión.

In Spain, this high-end version of Airbnb has a presence in Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca and Marbella, and plans to expand into Cataluña, with new properties in Barcelona and the Costa Brava. It is also analysing other destinations such as Madrid and Bilbao. “The properties must fulfil an extensive list of requirements and must stand out due to their location or because they have a certain feature that makes them special. For example, we are currently considering a farmhouse in Cataluña where purebred horses are raised”, adds Bonder. The valuation of the properties included on this platform range from €1.5 million to €10 million.

In this way, the prices per stay range between €3,500 and €350,000 per week and the services offered range from €500 to €150,000 and include everything from chefs to chauffeurs, to yachts, to children’s entertainment, to luxury cars and local “unique” experiences. For these services, the company maintains relationships with 600 Spanish suppliers.

Le Collectionist also has a consultancy service to advise property owners.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Be Mate Teams Up With Fund Q Capital to Grow its Tourist Home Business

23 March 2017 – Expansión

The businessman Enrique Sarasola has found a new formula for accelerating the growth of Be Mate, the rental platform for tourist apartments, through which he is complementing his Room Mate hotel offering. The plan is to team up with the investment fund Q Capital, which will contribute €100 million of funding so that Be Mate can search for, adapt and manage between eight and ten apartment buildings in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Sevilla.

“The project reinforces the idea that you can’t block progress”, explains Sarasola to Expansión, who also highlighted the importance of the fact that a “team as strong” as the one at Q Capital has decided to back the management of entire apartment buildings. The faces behind that firm include Íñigo Olaguíbel, Borja Oyarzábal and Borja Pérez.

Q Capital, founded in 2016, channels direct investments in Spain from Qualitas Equity Partners. Its objective is to find returns in segments such as SMEs and other niche areas not served by traditional financial operators.

Medium and long stay apartments

This alliance is going to give a boost to the concept already tested by Be Mate in the Plaza de España Skyline building: the management of entire buildings of tourist apartments. This business, inaugurated last year, is proving “a success”, explains Sarasola.

The novelty is not only in the financing, which is going to be provided by Q Capital, but also in the fact that Be Mate is going to go beyond the tourist home service to offer “apartments for medium and long stays, and for corporate use”. According to Sarasola, “it is another change that adapts to our times. We are pioneers in this field, but it is because we listen to our clients and we have identified that the need exists”.

Of the ten or so buildings planned, Be Mate has already identified five. The acquisitions will be undertaken over the next three years, initially in Spain, which is the “priority” market, but not at any price. “We will invest here for as long as the regulations are not prohibitive. If that changes, we will go overseas”, he warns.

Be Mate broke its own revenue record last year, by generating sales of €6 million, 10 times more than during the previous year. It sold 80,000 overnight stays for 30,000 clients, 40% of whom came from international markets. The company offers 10,000 apartments, 600 of which it manages exclusively.

Original story: Expansión (by I. de las Heras)

Translation: Carmel Drake

British Fund Behind Purchase of Benidorm’s Kronos Building for €20M

21 March 2018 – Alicante Plaza

A British fund is behind the purchase of most of the apartments in the Kronos building in Benidorm. According to local sources, of the more than 150 homes that are owned by Sareb, 136 are going to be taken over by a British fund. The operation is worth more than €20 million and just needs to be signed, something that should happen within the coming days.

As Alicante Plaza published on Tuesday, the so-called “bad bank” has managed to sell the properties that it owned in the city’s skyscraper in just one year. Around 20 homes have been sold to individuals, whilst the remainder will end up in the hands of a British fund.

But that is not the full story. It would seem that, at the end of last year, Sareb sold the storerooms and garages that it also owned in the building, the fifth highest skyscraper in Benidorm, and one of the tallest in Spain.

The tower has 41 storeys and was conceived as a luxury residential property: the structure occupies less than 20% of the plot. The remainder is used for common areas and recreation with two swimming pools, one for adults and one for children, a gym, a football pitch, padel and tennis courts, as well as extensive green areas.

The building was constructed by the Valencian property developer Grupo García Ojeda in 2005, and the keys were handed over three years later. But the crisis hit the sale of the apartments and ten years later almost all of the flats were still on the market

In this way, Sareb is getting rid of one of the skyscrapers that was hit the hardest by the “bursting” of the real estate bubble. It is worth remembering that Sareb rescued nine savings banks, including properties and loans to property developers. The latter was an operation that saw the skyscraper awarded to the “bad bank, whose debt used to belong to one of the companies owned by Grupo García Ojeda. Kronos has more than one link to Valencia, given that it was designed by the architecture firm MAPRC, which is also from that city.

Original story: Alicante Plaza (by Alba Mercader)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Acciona Buys More Land on which to Build 4,500 Homes

27 February 2018 – Europa Press

Acciona has accelerated its property development and house sales businesses by investing in the purchase of developable land, in such a way that it now owns a portfolio of land on which to build around 4,500 homes, which it plans to continue increasing.

The group chaired by José Manuel Entrecanales (pictured above) forecasts that the resumed real estate activity will start to contribute to the income statement next year.

Two years ago, Acciona took the decision to recover its real estate division with the aim of generating value from the assets that it still held in the sector in light of the reactivation that the business was starting to show in Spain following the crisis.

Thus, in terms of its real estate assets, the company merged its rental homes into Testa Residencial, the Socimi in which Santander, BBVA, Merlin Properties and now the group itself hold stakes, and which is planning to make its debut on the stock market next quarter. Moreover, it is proceeding with the sale of the rest of its assets (hotels and offices) on an individual basis.

In terms of its property development activity, Acciona resolved to return to building on the land portfolio that it had, whereby taking advantage of the recovery in the sector.

Nevertheless, the company has given a boost to that initial business plan and has dived into the purchase of new land. Specifically, over the last year, the firm has purchased plots worth €82 million with capacity for the development of around 1,400 homes.

In this way, Acciona currently has a land bank for the construction of 4,500 apartments, more than triple the amount that it had a year ago.

Nevertheless, the group has expressed its interest in continuing to invest in land both in Spain as well as in the other two markets where it has a presence in the real estate sector: Mexico and Poland, according to the company’s Director of Corporate Development, Juan Muro Lara.

The group calculates that it will allocate around 20% of its average annual investment, which amounts to between €900 million and €1 billion to the development of this revived business, including both the purchase of land and the construction of homes.

Original story: Europa Press

Translation: Carmel Drake

Grupo Ortiz Puts its Socimi up for Sale with Assets Worth €150M

27 November 2017 – El Independiente

The Carpintero family, the majority shareholder of the Socimi Grupo Ortiz Properties, has put the company up for sale, just four months after it started trading on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB). The sales prospectus has been in the offices of potential interested parties for several days now, according to intel gathered by El Independiente.

The company, which has real estate assets worth more than €150 million and a capitalisation of €74 million, owns 100,000 m2 of space for rent, with a 96% occupancy rate.

Most of the assets, equivalent to 97% of their value, are located in Madrid, and they generate aggregate net rental income of €6.9 million. The residual part of the portfolio is located in Asturias and Guadalajara.

The intention of the Carpintero family is to continue as a shareholder of the company, by holding onto around 30% of the share capital.

The company is led by Juan Antonio Carpintero (pictured above), President of Grupo Ortiz and Chairman of the Socimi’s Board of Directors, alongside his children María and Carlos Carpintero, Raúl Arce as the CEO of the construction company and Carlos Cuervo-Arango Martínez, a former director of Zeltia.

According to the company’s own reports, the market value of the assets owned by Grupo Ortiz Properties amounts to €150 million. Of those, its office buildings account for €67.1 million; its homes and apartments another €70.7 million; its warehouses €3.6 million; and its other premises and parking spaces €8.7 million.

In the documentation prepared for its debut on the stock market, Grupo Ortiz Properties described the nature of the property sector at the moment. “The real estate market is entering an attractive point in the cycle in light of the improvement being seen in the main macroeconomic indicators, such as consumer confidence, employment, interest rates, exports/imports, the industrial production index, the reactivation of the second-hand residential market – they are all signs of the economic recovery and of the start of a change in the cycle”.

The Socimi highlights that its “management strategy is based on long-term leases to solvent tenants (both economically and professionally) in order to ensure long-term sustainability and the ability to obtain an attractive return in exchange for the risk assumed”.

Original story: El Independiente (by Ana Antón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Notaries: House Sales Rose By 8.6% In Sept To 40,094

20 November 2017 – Eje Prime

House sales are continuing to soar. The volume of residential transactions rose by 8.6% in September with respect to the same month in 2016 (and by 12.2% in the series corrected for seasonality) to 40,094 operations, according to data from the General Council of Notaries.

By type of home, the sale of apartments registered a YoY increase of 7.7% (up by 11.3% in the series corrected for seasonality) and the volume of private home sales rose by 8.%. This increase in the number of transactions involving private homes was due, exclusively, to the expansion of second-hand home sales (10%), given that the sale of new build homes decreased by 1.9% YoY. Meanwhile, the sale of family homes rose by 12% YoY.

In terms of average prices, the cost per square metre of the homes purchased in September 2017 amounted to €1,331/m2, whereby reflecting a YoY price increase of 2.4%. According to the notaries, this increase in the price per square metre of homes was due to both an increase in the price of family homes (1.4%) and an increase in the price of apartments (3.8%). Meanwhile, the price per square metre of private homes rose by 4%.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake