Tag: Community of Valencia

The Market for Land Makes a Come Back in Valencia

25 March 2019 – El Mundo

The stars are aligning in the real estate sector in Valencia. Investors and developers alike are keen to get there hands on the raw material there – land. Activity in the segment is still well below its peak of the boom but the recovery is now well underway.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Development, during 2018, the number of land sale operations increased, as did the total surface area sold and the total amount of the transactions. The market for land is still on the rise, even though the average prices being paid for plots has decreased.

In this way, 1,884 land sales were completed in the Community of Valencia during 2018, up by 11.1% YoY, when 1,687 sales were recorded. That is the highest figure since just before real estate bubble burst – 3,199 operations were recorded across the three provinces in 2007.

In total, 3.9 million m2 of land was sold last year, compared with 3.35 million m2 in 2017. Not since 2007 has more land been transacted in a single year – 5.4 million m2 of land was sold in 2007.

In total, investment in urban land amounted to €373.5 million last year, compared to €345.7 million the previous year. That is the highest figure since 2009 when €512 million was invested.

Moreover, the outlook for the year ahead is positive. More and larger land purchases are forecast, although the stock of plots with the most potential is starting to run out.

In terms of prices, the average price per square metre fell by 18% in Q4 2018 in YoY terms to €149.6/m2. Nevertheless, the average price rose by 21.7% to €217.9/m2 in those municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in Alicante. That price compares very favourably with the average for municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants across the rest of Spain, where prices increased by 6.3% to €292/m2.

Original story: El Mundo (by F. D. G.)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Fotocasa: Residential Rental Yields Fell to 5.4% in January

26 January 2019 – El Economista

Residential yields in Spain fell by 7% in January 2019 with respect to the same month a year earlier to reach 5.4%, according to a report from Fotocasa.

The data obtained from the prices of house sales and rentals during the month of January show that acquiring a property to put it up for rent was “a bit more profitable” in 2018 than in 2019, according to Fotocasa.

The Head of Research at the real estate portal, Beatriz Toribio, explained that “this slight decrease in yields stands out because it is the first recorded in the month of January for the last 10 years. It is explained by the lower rate of growth in rental prices that we have seen since the end of 2018%”.

The report shows that Cataluña was the most profitable autonomous region, with a yield of 5.8%, compared to 6.7% in January 2018, which represents a decrease of 13% in that region.

In second place, the Community of Valencia had an average yield of 5.7%, compared with 5.9% in January 2018. Fotocasa highlighted that in just one year, the Community of Valencia went from being the 4th most profitable region to the 2nd.

It was followed by Murcia with a yield of 5.6%, compared to 5.7% a year earlier and Madrid (5.5% compared to 5.9% in 2018) (…).

The autonomous regions with the lowest yields were Galicia and La Rioja, with returns of 4.2% each; Navarra (4.4%) and Castilla y León (4.5%).

On the other hand, the most profitable city in the country was Hospitalet de Llobregat, which took the top position for the ninth year in a row, with a yield of 6.3%, the same percentage it obtained in 2018.

Original story: El Economista 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Qatari Fund ‘Sama Global’ Negotiates Investment in Marina d’Or

6 February 2019 – Expansión

Jesús Ger, the founder and owner of the Marina d’Or holiday city, is looking again at the Arab countries to find an investor with whom to consolidate his business project. And in that respect, all indications are that the Qatari investment fund Sama Global Investment is going to become the new financial partner of Marina d’Or.

Ger’s group, which has promoted and which manages the popular holiday city located in Oropesa del Mar (Castellón), has been actively looking to incorporate partners for years, especially since the end of the real estate bubble paralysed its investments in other countries and threatened the continuity of its property development business.

The business includes the Marina d’Or Golf project, which was the largest urban development plan undertaken by the Community of Valencia spanning a surface area of 18 million m2, which was suspended by the courts and due to a lack of funds. Initially, Ger was looking for capital willing to finance part of the colossal €6 billion investment forecast for the macro-urbanisation around the themed golf course and hotel.

In 2015, it was even understood that the Chinese group Wanda was going to acquire a majority stake in the Castellón-based group after reports were published to that effect by an official news outlet of the Chinese Communist Party. The truth was that, although Marina d’Or maintained contact with several Chinese investors, Wanda was not one of them.

Focus on the tourist business

Now, however, the interest of the Qatari fund is focused on Hoteles Marina d’Or, the company that manages the tourist activity in the Castellón resort and which includes seven establishments – two outside of the complex -, the rental of tourist apartments and the operation of the restaurant area, the spa and the attraction parks in the holiday city. In recent years, those activities have generated revenues of more than €40 million per year and, unlike the real estate business, they are still profitable.

The interest from Sama Global, which dates back to 2017, appears to focus on replicating the holiday city model in other international markets. In fact, the fund, which is headquartered in Doha, has already closed its first operation to become a partner in a property developer and operator in the Philippines, Premiere Horizon Alliance Corporation, which is listed in Manila (…).

Official sources from Marina d’Or acknowledged yesterday that conversations are being held with a Qatari fund, but they said that they are still in an initial phase and are not close to completion yet (…).

Original story: Expansión (by A.C.A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Land at the Former San Jorge Paper Mill is being Advertised for 20 Times Less than the PAI’s Initial Appraisal Value

13 November 2018 – Levante EMV

“Second-hand urban land with a surface area of 10,893 m2 and a buildability of 5,514 m2. Located on the outskirts of Xàtiva, in a quiet area”. That advert has been circulating for months on several real estate websites for  a portion of the land where the historical San Jorge Paper Mill used to be located – a dismantled factory complex and a symbol of the former industrial splendour of the city and, until the middle of the 20th century, one of the most important emporiums in the country.

With the crisis, the plot for sale, which is residential in nature, became part of the portfolio of Banco Sabadell’s real estate division, although a promotion is marketing it for just €65,600: equivalent to €8/m2. The amount has decreased by 47% since the asset was transferred. After its reclassification 13 years ago, the plots were appraised at a price twenty times higher, at €170/m2, a figure that is closer to the current market average. A few metres away, on the industrial estate, commercial and industrial use plots half the size are being sold for €1.5 million.

The different buildings that used to make up the San Jorge Paper Mill occupy two urban plots that, according to the cadastral records, span 65,000 m2. The largest, measuring 54,000 m2, was seized and adjudicated by the court in 2017 to Sareb, the bad bank created to absorb the toxic real estate assets. The property no longer appears in the entity’s public catalogue in Xàtiva.

At the height of the real estate boom, a company administered by a former colleague of Alfonso Rus in the PP, condemned for fraud, managed to persuade the department run by the now imprisoned Rafael Blasco to reclassify 73,000 m2 of land in the factory complex from industrial to residential for the construction of 310 homes. That operation revalued the land by €10 million: Caixa Catalunya appraised the land at €12.4 million and signed a mortgage loan amounting to €6.1 million with the property developer of the PAI, which had previously purchased the land for just €2.4 million.

In the process of being protected

The municipal government of Xàtiva has definitively buried the failed urban planning progress during this legislature. Nevertheless, for the time being,  the Town Hall’s plans do not include the option of following in the footsteps of the former convent of Santa Clara and acquiring the land of the paper mill, founded in 1932 by Gregorio Molina. Municipal sources emphasise that the land of the former industrial company is still considered to be for “undeveloped low-density residential” use, although there is no intention to develop any project on the site for now.

The Paper Mill, which is in the process of being declared an Asset of Local Importance and of having its protection status expanded, is home to the largest brick chimney in the Community of Valencia, as well as a mill and a light factory. Its warehouses, gadgets and other components of industrial heritage were going to be demolished by the property developer of the former PAI. The land for sale also served as a paintball battlefield a few years ago (…).

Original story: Levante EMV (by S. Gómez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

“Anti-Eviction Law” Reveals that CaixaBank has 5,000+ Empty Homes in Valencia

7 October 2018 – Valencia Plaza

La Generalitat is pushing ahead with its count of empty homes in the hands of owners of large property portfolios in the Community of Valencia. Reporting of these types of assets is now mandatory under the Law for the Social Function of Housing – known as the Valencian “anti-eviction law”, – a text that was watered down by the Constitutional Court (CC) but in whose articles the Consell still retains the tools to demand the reporting of unoccupied assets and to impose fines in the event of a lack of collaboration.

The Valencian Government reactivated the count following the recent ruling from the CC. The most recent figure provided by the Conselleria de Vivienda amounts to 7,315 homes across the length and breadth of the Community: 45% in the province of Valencia, 38% in Castellón and the remaining 17% in Alicante. But the most striking fact comes from the analysis of the owners, given that a total of 5,270 homes are owned by the CaixaBank Group.

The bulk, according to data provided to this newspaper by the socialist Minister María José Salvador, corresponds to 5,065 empty homes reported by BuildingCenter, the company owned by CaixaBank “focused on the divestment of the portfolio of properties proceeding from the group”, according to the company’s own motto -. The remainder to arrive at the total of 5,270 units corresponds to 148 reported directly by Caixabank, 51 from Banco de Valencia, 5 from Credifimo and 1 from Gestión Fondos Credifimo.

Almost all of the homes owned by the group in the Community come from foreclosures made by the now extinct Banco de Valencia, which was awarded to La Caixa for €1 in 2012 under the framework of the bank restructuring. As a result, the data provided by CaixaBank to La Generalitat reveal that, six years later, the stock of assets proceeding from the extinct Valencian bank continues to be very bulky.

In addition to the empty homes reported by the CaixaBank group, the other properties to reach the total of 7,315 units are owned by Sareb (1,598 homes) and Grupo Santander (447), split into the companies Altamira Santander Real Estate (339), Banco Santander (67), Luri 6 SA (36) and Santander Consumer Finance (6) (…).

Register of uninhabited homes (…)

The law provides for the creation of the Register of Uninhabited Homes (…) so that all of the homes that are declared uninhabited by the administration can be grouped together and “housing solutions can be granted to those people who need them most”. The objective of the administration is to “mobilise the more than 500,000 empty homes that there are in the Community”, according to estimates.

Original story: Valencia Plaza (by Dani Valero)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Fotocasa: Rental Prices Reach Historical Peaks in 2018 in the Balearic Islands, Las Palmas, Salamanca, Barcelona & Madrid

3 July 2018 – El Economista

Rental prices in five Spanish provinces (the Balearic Islands, Las Palmas, Salamanca, Barcelona and Madrid) have reached their historical maximums in 2018, according to data provided by Fotocasa. The situation extends to nearby municipalities in the provincial capitals.

Barcelona, with a maximum price of €13.90/m2 in January 2018, is the province with the most expensive rental prices, following by Madrid, with an average of €12.36/m2, recorded in April this year. Those two provinces are followed by the Balearic Islands, with a price of €10.60/m2; Las Palmas (€7.65/m2); and Salamanca (€7.34/m2).

According to the Head of Research at Fotocasa, Beatriz Toribio, “the average price of rental housing in Spain has been growing uninterruptedly for three years, but in 2017, it did so at a very intense rate, above all in the large provincial capitals and in tourist destinations such as Madrid and Barcelona”.

Moreover, 65 other towns have also recorded their maximum prices at some point during 2018, in particular, those in the autonomous regions of Andalucía, the Community of Valencia, Madrid and Cataluña.

In this way, in Andalucía, 11 municipalities have recorded maximum prices in 2018, including Málaga, Torremolinos and Rincón de la Victoria. In the Community of Valencia, rental prices in 10 municipalities have reached their historical peaks, whilst in the Community of Madrid, 7 municipalities have seen maximum prices, such as Madrid capital, Las Rozas and Boadilla del Monte. Finally, in Cataluña, 9 municipalities have reached their maximum rental prices.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

C&W: New Retail Park Openings in 2018 Set to Exceed Those Registered in 2017 by Five-Fold

7 June 2018 – Eje Prime

Out-of-town retail parks are seducing the sector. Planned openings of retail parks in Spain this year span a surface area of 180,000 m2, which represents an almost five-fold increase compared to the 38,000 m2 registered in 2017, according to data analysed by the real estate consultancy firm Cushman&Wakefield. Specifically, the investment volume over the last 12 months in this segment amounted to €650 million, with a prime yield of 5%.

During this period, the Vidanova Parc project, in Sagunto (Community of Madrid) is the largest planned opening for the year with a gross leasable area of 45,000 m2, followed by the Torrevillage retail park (Zaragoza), with 35,000 m2 and Jaén Plaza (Jaén), with 29,000 m2. In addition, a further seven retail parks, with a combined GLA of more than 10,000 m2 are in the pipeline.

The consultancy firm has identified an increase in the demand for secondary retail parks in light of the shortage of available prime locations, greater activity in the home and decoration sectors and the consolidation of omnichannel sales

In this way, the firm highlights traditional operators such as Leroy Merlin, Ikea, Media Markt and Maison du Monde, which have expanded their presence towards the centre of cities in spaces measuring between 1,500 m2 and 4,000 m2, in search of more urban demand, with new ways of consumption and a lower dependence on cars.

On the other hand, rents remain stable in both prime and secondary retail parks. Thus, in Madrid, they amount to €21.50/m2/month and in Barcelona, they cost €18/m2/month for prime parks.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Ministry of Development: Spain Signed 60,000 New Home Permits in 2017

5 June 2018 – Eje Prime

Spain is still a long way from the dizzy heights of 2006, but its stock of housing is gradually recovering the colour it lost during the decade when the sun shone very little over the new build sector. Last year, 60,888 municipal licences were signed for the construction of new homes, which represents almost twice as many as the 31,213 permits that were granted five years ago, according to data from the Ministry of Development.

Moreover, in YoY terms, the increase in the number of licences for the construction of residential buildings was 6.5%, with even greater rises in certain autonomous regions, such as Cataluña, where the increase to November exceeded 50%.

Nevertheless, the region where most new homes are being built, Madrid, recorded a slight decline in 2017. Following a significant increase in the number of licences during the beginning of the new economic cycle, last year, that market for the construction of new homes lost speed with a decrease of 4.4%.

In total, in the Spanish capital and its surrounding area, 14,018 licences were signed last year for residential construction, a figure that doubles the number recorded in 2016, but which represents a decrease of more than 650 homes at a time when there is great demand from Spanish and international investors.

The recovery of the Madrilenian residential market is clearly understood in the increase in the number of licences for the construction of new homes experienced first between 2013 and 2015, and, more importantly, during 2016. Five years ago, 6,134 permits were signed in the central region, in an annus horribilis that followed a 2012 in which Madrid approved 17,000 licences. After that, 24 months of stabilisation in the segment with the registration of between 7,000 and 8,000 licences (in total) for new homes, proceeded a 2016 that doubled the figures with 7,500 administrative signings of contracts for residential development.

The shortage of land and the obstacles imposed by Town Halls such as Madrid’s (…) have led to a fall that is heating up the market and generating problems for the whole sector. Other autonomous regions, such as  Navarra, Aragón, Asturias and Murcia also recorded decreases in 2017, going against the tide (…) and once again showing signs that Spain is moving at two speeds in the residential sector.

Significant increases on the Mediterranean Coast 

The Mediterranean coast is proving to be the engine for new housing in Spain. Regions such as Cataluña, the Community of Valencia, the Balearic Islands and the Málagan section of the Costa del Sol are registering significant growth figures in terms of the number of licences granted for the construction of housing.

Cataluña is on a roll with the construction of homes, with an increase of 50% during the first ten months of last year. To November, 9,815 licences were signed and sources in the sector have said to Eje Prime that the forecast for the end of the year was 12,100 permits, up by 35% compared to 2016 (…).

Heading south, the Community of Valencia has developed in a similar way to the Catalan market over the last five years. It doubled its annual figures between 2013 and 2017, from 3,142 permits to 6,588, but the greatest increase came in 2016. In just twelve months, the Mediterranean region increased the number of licences from 4,712 to 6,540, up by 39%.

The markets in the Balearic Islands and Andalucía, where the Costa del Sol plays a prominent role, have also shown clear signs of improvement in recent years. On the islands, permits for new build almost tripled between 2015 and 2017 from 826 to 2,391 (…).

Meanwhile, in Andalucía, although the growth percentage was similar, the increase was calculated on a larger volume of homes. As one of the areas with the highest demand for new home permits, the region (…) closed 2017 with 12,363 licences. Just five years earlier, that figure barely exceeded 5,000 (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Quabit to Invest €20M in Land in Valencia to Build 500 Homes

24 May 2018 – Eje Prime

Quabit Inmobiliaria is strengthening its commitment to Valencia. The listed property developer is going to invest at least €20 million this year in the purchase of buildable land in the autonomous region, where it is planning to build 500 homes. The company is planning to acquire plots in different locations across the region and does not rule out spending up to €30 million if the right opportunities arise.

The company led and controlled by Félix Abánades (pictured above) wants to position itself as a leading player in the Mediterranean region with plots “that allow us to launch promotions immediately”, revealed the director in an interview with València Plaza.

Valencia and the Alicante coast are going to be the markets in the region where Quabit will make the majority of its investments, given that the firm believes that “they have a lot of potential and housing is still cheap there, with scope for business”, according to Abánades.

The capital needed to carry out these operations will be financed, in part, by the capital increase that the company undertook recently and through which it expects to raise up to €63 million.

Quabit’s existing land portfolio in the Community of Valencia totals 126,500 m2, which accounts for 12% of all the land that it owns in Spain. The region is one of the property developer’s major focuses. It also has a significant presence in other coastal regions, such as the province of Málaga, where it owns land with capacity for 2,000 homes.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Property Developer Urbas Records a Loss of €354k in Q1

15 May 2018 – Eje Prime

The Urbas Financial Group is in the red. The company recorded a negative net consolidated result of €354,000 during Q1, which represented a decrease from the profit of €1.05 million that it recorded in the first quarter of 2017, according to Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV).

The Group’s total debt with banks decreased by 2.4% in March to €122.6 million. Urbas’s land portfolio spanned 18 million m2 at the end of the first quarter. Of the real estate company’s total surface area, 73% corresponds to rural land, 25% to buildable land and 2% to urban land.

Most of the land bank that the Group owns is located in the Community of Valencia, which accounts for 34.8% of the company’s portfolio. That region is followed by Madrid with 20.5% of the total; Andalucía with 17%; and Castilla La Mancha with 14%, which are the other three regions where the company’s land is concentrated. It also owns plots in Murcia, Castilla y León and several other autonomous regions.

In 2017, Urbas increased its profit by 8.8% to exceed €5 million. The group recorded revenues of €4.2 million, which represented an increase of 40% with respect to 2016, and also generated positive EBITDA.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake