Tag: barcelona

Housing Sector To Improve Region To Region RECOVERY / Large Cities Are Initiating The Climb Out Of The Crisis

26/12/2014 – Expansión

Housing recovery will be asymmetrical, as it is in the real estate market — experts and industry players are convinced. Areas where fewer new homes remain unsold and price adjustments have been significant will take less time to return to normal levels than in the more built-up provinces.

What happens in big cities is often a leading indicator of the coming trend. And in Madrid, housing price adjustment has been more than 40% and things are starting to move again in the real estate market. That is, investors have already become more active, considering that home value drop will not deepen much further. The same thing is happening in Barcelona and major cities in the Basque country. The surprise is that real estate consultants and economists already see the light at the end of the tunnel in Mediterranean tourist destinations such as the Costa del Sol – which always falls and recovers before the average of other Spanish regions – and parts of Levante, the eastern coast.

Specifically, there are already 20 provinces that are on the road to recovery, after seven years of continuous descent. This is much better than the 2013 scenario, in which only eight provinces were showing signs of improvement. This was noted in a report by Deloitte in which the exit speed of the real estate crisis is measured by region.

According to the study, the Spanish provinces with the best real estate score are in order as follows: Madrid, Álava, Barcelona, Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, Navarra, Cantabria, Zaragoza, Lleida, Baleares, Segovia, Valencia, Asturias, Huesca, Burgos, Valladolid, Palencia and Soria. That is to say, these are the regions where the real estate market will see the greatest recovery, i.e. more and more cranes, construction projects and mortgage subrogation will begin to pop up.

On the opposite end, Almería, Ciudad Real, Toledo and Castellón will take the longest to recover, “due to both their worse relative position in macroeconomic terms and weaker real estate sector activity, heavily penalized by oversupply.” Yes, it is remarkable that this tail-end has shrunk from having 21 provinces in 2012 to only four this year. The remaining areas (25 provinces) are at a midpoint, meaning they will recover in ‘a second phase’”.

It is also important to note that 18 of the 20 provinces that will get out of the housing crisis early are situated in the North. The other two are the Balearic Islands and Valencia (see chart). And none of the southern provinces will recover in the first of the three exit phases of the housing crisis that Deloitte has set. “The North will climb out of the crisis faster than the South, since it is not so contingent upon tourism. Furthermore, in the North, urban residential development has not been as significant as in the South,” said the Director of Deloitte Real Estate, Javier Garcia-Mateo.

The regions with the highest housing stock are Valencia (164,000 homes), Andalusia (102,500) and Castilla-La Mancha (83,700). Together, these three regions account for more than half the housing surplus at the end of 2014, according to the Real Estate Institute Business Practice Pulsometer, which estimates the stock of unsold new homes at the end of 2014 at 652,000, 14.8% less than in 2013. On the opposite side, Extremadura (3,238), Navarra (3,854) and Baleares (7,965) have the lowest number of homes remaining unsold. Catalonia has a surplus of 12,977 homes, less than half that of Madrid (27,198).

Original article: Expansión

Translation: Aura REE

The Catalan Government Predicts Property Sales Of Around €130 Million Before The End Of The Year

12/08/2014 – Europa Press

During 2014 it wants to find the future headquarters of the Department of Economy

The Generalitat, Government of the autonomous region of Catalonia, intends to complete property sales amounting to some 130 million euros before the end of the year in order to meet the objective of earning income of €400 million during 2014, of which it has already achieved €266 million up to July with the sale of 17 buildings.

That is what the general director of Patrimonio, Salvador Estapé, has explained in an interview by Europa Press, indicating that in this second half year “smaller transactions rather than sales of large buildings” are expected, and in the Catalan capital in any case.

The exception with regards to important buildings is that of the Barcelona Stock Exchange, for sale since 2011 – first as part of a batch of properties and then separately – and valued then at €57,4 million. Its sale remains one of the objectives of the Catalan Government, although the intention is to be able to sell it empty.

Relocation of the Barcelona stock exchange

This requires an agreement with the Barcelona Stock Exchange, which has the right to use the current facilities until 2030, to get it to relocate; they are currently in talks, but still without any agreement reached, according to both parties.

“It is the most important asset. Our wish would be to be able to sell it because it is very well situated and it would contribute to the sales plan” confirmed Estapé.

Sources from the Barcelona Stock Exchange have explained to Europa Press that they have “a relationship of maximum collaboration with the Generalitat” although finding an alternative place is difficult.

“It is in a study and analysis phase, because the Stock Exchange has an infrastructure which is not typical, with telecommunications and computer systems which are not easy to move; it’s complicated”, they added.

The Generalitat also has for sale the old building of the Department for Work (Conselleria de Trabajo), in Barcelona’s Sepúlveda street, which has also been available for sale for years.

Concentration

Estapé has highlighted the Catalan Government’s objective to “work towards greater centralisation and to avoid the dispersion and fragmentation of spaces” in the administrative departments of the Generalitat.

He has added that the plans for centralisation are not changed by the fact that virtually no offers were received in response to the first tender held to lease a building of between 20.000 and 35.000 square metres, in order to relocate the Department of Economy – whose headquarters in the Barcelona’s Rambla Catalunya had been sold – and other departments.

On this point, he has explained that during this second half of the year they would like to find a place where the headquarters of the Department of Economy will be located by two years from now, when the maximum deadline for the move will end: “There is still time, but time passes quickly.”

The rationalisation plan approved by the Catalan Government also foresees the “clustering” or grouping together in one area of the headquarters of some entities, such as the autonomous region’s public authorities.

In this way, they could be concentrated close to the Generalitat, in Barcelona’s old town, and the Tax Office of Catalonia and the Institute of Statistics of Catalonia (Idescat) could also change location in order to improve their financial performance.

Original article: Europa Press
Translation: Aura REE