Tag: Cepco

Cepco: New Build Starts Could Reach 80,000 Units By Year-End

7 November 2017 – Cinco Días

With barely two months to go before the end of the year, forecasts abound about what is going to happen to house prices, house sales and construction activity in the residential sector. After three years (2014, 2015 and 2016) during which the sector has gradually emerged from the worst real estate crisis in recent history, 2017 is going to be remembered as the year in which the improvement in all the variables was consolidated, property developers returned to the stock market and overseas investment in the sector reached record levels.

The only but that continues to mark this recovery is its heterogeneity, given that prices are not rising by the same amount in every autonomous region and homes are nowhere near as easy to sell in Cáceres as they are in Madrid (for example); moreover, cranes are not expected to return to certain regions for a long while yet.

Nevertheless, 2018 can be summarised by the fact that we expect to see more of the same. Prices will continue to recover, even reaching double-digit growth rates, above all in Madrid, Barcelona and certain parts of the Mediterranean Coast; transaction volumes may exceed the 500,000 unit threshold; and the number of new homes started will amount to 80,000 units, if the current rate continues.

And that is because the statistics in aggregate terms reveal some very significant increases, both in terms of transaction volumes and new home starts. For example, between January and August 2017, 56,000 new homes were sold in Spain, up by 5.8% compared to the same period last year, according to the latest report from the Spanish Confederation of the Associations of Construction Product Manufacturers (Cepco).

That represents quite an accelerated rate, with which permits for new homes are trying to keep up. During the first seven months of this year, 49,200 new permits were granted, up by 9,700 compared to the same period last year, which represents an increase of no less than 24.4% in relative terms.

That is what is causing the experts to predict that if these trends continue, then work could begin on the construction of around 80,000 new homes by the end of this year. If that volume of construction ends up being confirmed, the level of activity recorded in 2016, when 64,038 homes were started, will have risen by 25%. Nevertheless, these figures are still well below the more than 865,000 new home permits that were granted in 2006. And a considerable distance from the 200,000 or 250,000 that the consensus of experts in the sector believes will represent the real estate market’s cruising speed over the medium term.

Meanwhile, the number of finished homes also grew significantly during 2017, by 40%, although in absolute terms the figures are still minimal (33,085), as Cepco’s research acknowledges (…).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Raquel Díaz Guijarro)

Translation: Carmel Drake

House Stocks Decrease Most Where GDP Growth Is Strongest

25 March 2015 – Cinco Días

Since the burst of the (property) bubble and the subsequent closure of the credit tap, experts in the real estate sector have said that until the employment situation improves and access to financing is relaxed, house purchases will not regain the vigour they once enjoyed.

Seven years after the longest and deepest crisis in this sector in living memory, and just when some regions are beginning to see positive growth, both in terms of house prices and sales, we are seeing that those analysts were right all along.

The Spanish Confederation of the Construction Product Manufacturers Association (Cepco) estimates that 439,617 homes were left unsold and unlet at the end of last year, i.e. 36.26% fewer than the figure in 2009 (689,787) (we should note that the volume of total stock peaked in 2010 at 692,560 homes and has decreased since then).

Recovery

However, this significant reduction in stock, most of which has taken place in the last two years, has not been uniform across the different autonomous regions and, interestingly, has not been determined by the behaviour of prices in each region, but instead by the recovery in economic activity.

Thus, based on data from Cepco and calculations carried out by Cinco Días, the five regions where the stock of new homes decreased the most between 2009 and the third quarter of last year (the latest data available with this level of granularity) are: Navarra, Cantabria, Extremadura, the Canary Islands and Madrid, with decreases ranging from 93.02% in the case of the former, to 45.10% in the case of the latter.

And, in parallel, where have the prices of newly built houses decreased the most? According to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Development based on data from appraisal companies, the five regions where new properties have most decreased in price are: Murcia, Aragón, Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía. On this occasion, the cumulative declines range between 44.46% in the case of the former and 33.05% in the case of the latter.

In fact, house prices are currently equivalent to average values last seen between the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004; and according to the experts, in some cases, these prices still have further to fall. There is no relationship between these two variables. However, the situation is different if we look at economic growth data.

Although the first official accounting figures by region are not yet available (INE is due to publish them next Friday), the numbers prepared by Hispalink indicate that the five communities that recorded the highest GDP growth rates last year were: the Canary Islands, Madrid, Navarra, Cataluña, and Valencia.

On this occasion, there is a correlation in the case of three regions where house stocks have decreased the most, which shows that, in fact, economic growth is a stronger driver of house sales, including those sold from stock, than the evolution of prices. And (the relationship is proportional): the stronger the recovery, the better.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Raquel Díaz Guijarro)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Andalucía’s Housing Sector Finally Shows Signs Of Recovery

17 March 2015 – Cinco Días

The region has joined the recovery later due to its poor employment situation.

The autonomous community of Andalucía was undoubtedly one of the hardest hit by the burst of the real estate bubble, due to the weight that holiday homes have traditionally held in the region. Attracted by the influence that the areas of Marbella and the Costa del Sol have had on the rest of the Andalucían coast for decades, Andalucía was no exception and also joined the construction craze and the boom in prices.

In fact, according to figures published by the local Government, led by the socialist Susana Díaz, based on census data compiled by the National Institute for Statistics (INE) and estimates from the Ministry for Development, the total stock of real estate in Andalucía currently amounts to around 4.5 million homes.

If we compare this figure with data from 2001 (population census numbers and housing data are compiled every 10 years), the stock of housing has increased by more than one million homes, which represents a rise of more than 25% in relative terms. This means that, just like in the rest of the country, a significant stock of unsold new homes has accumulated (in Andalucía); some sources estimate (that the stock amounts to) 150,000 properties and others, such as the Spanish Confederation of the Construction Product Manufacturers Association (Cepco) estimated (that the stock amounted to) 114,000 in 2009.

What has happened since then? As in the rest of the country, between 2009 and 2013, construction activity (in Andalucía) virtually ceased, prices experienced the largest slump in recent history and house sales dropped to historical lows, dampened by the poor employment situation and the closure of the credit tap.

Foreign buyers

In this context, sales did not begin to take off again until price reductions started to decelerate and the flow of financing started to slowly open up; and since then, sales have evolved unevenly in each region.

Six years on and Andalucía is not known for being one of the regions where house sales have grown the most or where cranes have begun to appear again, since it is still weighed down by the employment situation, which has not improved there as it has done in other autonomous regions. And this is the case, regardless of the statistics that we analyse.

If we take the most recent statistics (published last Thursday) as a benchmark, which were prepared by the Ministry of Development using data from notaries, house sales in Andalucía grew by 21% during the last quarter of 2014 with respect to the same period in the previous year. These figures are roughly equivalent to the national average (19.5%), however according to the Ministry of Development, seven regions experienced increases that exceeded those recorded in Andalucía.

Meanwhile, if we consider the statistical figures compiled by INE, which obtains its data from the property registers, then house sales in Andalucía increased by just 0.3% year-on-year in 2014, compared with an average rate of increase across Spain of 2.2%. This modest growth in Andalucía contrasts with the recoveries of 18.5% and 12% in terms of real estate sales experienced in the Balearic and Canary Islands, respectively, two other regions that are heavily influenced by holiday homes and purchases by foreigners. Even so, the surplus of new homes in Andalucía had decreased by 44.5% to amount to 63,250 new homes as of last September, according to Cepco.

And where is Andalucía in terms of prices? Again, it worth considering the two sets of statistics that are regarded as ‘official’: those published by the Ministry of Development and INE. The department led by Ana Pastor recently published its price statistics relating to the entire year 2014 (compiled on the basis of appraisal values) and although they showed that house prices (in Spain) increased by an average of 0.5% on a quarter-by-quarter basis (the last quarter in 2014 compared with the previous three months), on an annual basis (fourth quarter 2014 compared with the same period in 2013), the most recent figure was negative, with house prices decreasing by 0.3% at the end of last year.

Nevertheless, Andalucía recorded positive rates in both cases, although the increases were very modest: 0.4% QoQ and 0.2% YoY. By province, five ended 2014 with lower prices than they had recorded a year before. Meanwhile, according to INE’s data (compiled using figures from notaries), Andalucía closed 2014 with an average annual price increase of 1.8%, just one (basis) point below the highest figures, which were recorded in Madrid and Valencia, with annual increases of 2.9% and 2.8%, respectively.

Industry experts agree that the recovery in the real estate market has started later in Andalucía than in other regions, but consider that now is the moment to take advantage of the ‘pull of tourism’ to construct there once again, since there is demand, and that will generate activity and employment.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Raquel Díaz Guijarro)

Translation: Carmel Drake