Tag: Community of Valencia

Bain Capital Sells Bancaja Habitat’s Former HQ

14 March 2017 – Expansión

Activity is continuing in the Valencian real estate market, although this time, the deal is more symbolic than significant. The headquarters of what used to be the largest real estate company and landowner in the Community of Valencia, Bancaja Hábitat, has a new owner. The US investment fund Bain Capital has sold the property located on Paseo de Alameda 7 in Valencia, which had been the operational headquarters of the former real estate subsidiary of the former savings bank.

Bain Capital took control of the commercial property, which has a surface area of 1,870 m2 spread over two floors, as part of a large batch of assets and debt that it acquired from Bankia in 2016. In turn, Altamira Asset Management had been entrusted to manage the property.

According to comments made by the real estate consultancy Inmoking, which participated in the operation as the marketer of the premises, the building has now been purchased by a Valencian investment group, whose identity has not been revealed. The new owner plans to look for a tenant for the premises, which are currently closed.

Catering and gastronomic businesses have proliferated in this area of La Alameda in recent years, which had been dominated by office buildings before the crisis. One example includes the recent opening of a Ginos restaurant by the Vips chain, on the ground floor of the La Pagoda building.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA Puts 2,900 Homes Up For Sale With Discounts Of <50%

20 January 2017 – Expansión

BBVA’s real estate unit, Anida, has launched a new campaign in which it is offering discounts of up to 50% on a selection of homes spread across the country.

The campaign, which has been baptised “Nuestras casa se van de rebajas”, will run until 28 February and includes 2,287 flats and 584 houses, both second-hand and new developments. All of the information about the development can be found on Anida’s website.

Most of the homes are located in Cataluña, the Community of Valencia, Murcia, Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid. BBVA is also offering its clients financing of up to 100% of the purchase value, provided that figure does not exceed 100% of the appraisal value.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

House Prices Decrease By The Most In Castellón In 2016

13 December 2016 – El Mundo

House prices are still falling in the province of Castellón, despite the fact that they are rising in Spain as a whole (by 4% over the last 12 months) and have now recorded 10 consecutive quarters of increases.

Castellón closed the third quarter of the year as the province where house prices decreased by the most in the last year, with a YoY decline of 4%. Only in La Rioja have house prices fallen by more than the average for unsubsidised homes, with a decrease of 5%, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Development.

At the moment, the average unsubsidised home in the province of Castellón costs €1,027/m2, which represents a decrease of 3.3% compared with the previous quarter and of 4% compared to a year ago.

Castellón is the cheapest place to buy an unsubsidised home at the moment, based on average prices. And the province not only offers the lowest prices, it is also where prices are continuing to decrease despite the increase that they are experiencing across the rest of Spain and also in the rest of the Community of Valencia.

The highest increase in house prices was recorded in the province of Valencia, although Alicante registered the highest prices. In this sense, it is worth noting that, according to the statistics from the Ministry of Development, the average cost of an unsubsidised home amounted to €1,117.1/m2 at the end of Q3 2016. This figure represents an increase of 1.9% with respect to the second quarter of the year and a rise of 4% over the last 12 months. Meanwhile, the average price of unsubsidised homes in Alicante amounted to €1,240.6/m2, having risen by 1.3% during the quarter and by 1.4% in the last year, according to the same sources at the Ministry of Development.

And as house prices continue to decrease in the province of Castellón, so too do the number of home purchases. In this sense, it is worth remembering that Castellón is the province where the number of new home sales has fallen by the most in the last year. Nevertheless, and despite the 46.50% decrease in new house sales across Castellón in the last year, the volume of total transactions is positive due to the vortex experienced in terms of demand for second-hand properties.

In the province of Castellón, 6,043 homes have been sold in the last year, which represents an increase of 6.92% YoY. Despite this rise, with a total of 696 transactions involving new homes in the last year, the province has registered a decrease of 46.50% in terms of the number of operations involving new homes, the highest in all of Spain. Meanwhile, second-hand homes account for the majority of the transactions registered in the province of Castellón, with a total of 5,347 sales, which represents 88.48% of the total, according to the latest data.

Original story: El Mundo (by Berta Ribés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mercadona Acquires Logistics Plot In Valencia For €24M

9 December 2016 – Expansión

The supermarket chain Mercadona is preparing to build a new logistics centre in Parc Sagunt, the largest industrial estate in the Community of Valencia, which is almost empty at the moment.

The firm has acquired a plot measuring 358,270 m2 for €24 million, on which it will construct a logistics block. The centre will not be used to supply the chain’s stores directly, like its existing centres, but will instead centralise the storage and distribution of products to the other logistics centres. It will be the first point of receipt for products that due to their nature require this kind of logistic management, for example, perishable goods, goods from the same supplier and goods imported through ports.

Sources at Mercadona explain that, for the time being, the definitive design for the centre and the total investment have not been defined.

The chain currently operates thirteen logistics centres and three satellite warehouses. In total, it has a surface area of 854,000 m2. In 2007, the company launched a strategy involving intelligent logistics centres, which kicked off with the construction of a centre in Ciempozuelos (Madrid) and was subsequently extended to include centres in Ribarroja (Valencia), Villadangos (León), Guadix (Granada) and Abrera (Barcelona). The final phases still need to be incorporated into this last block. Around €300 million has been invested to date.

In recent years, Mercadona has invested €700 million in its logistics platforms. It will open its next centre in Vitoria, whose first phase will be operational next year, following a €50 million investment.

Relief for Parc Sagunt

This operation was approved on Wednesday by the Board of Directors of Parc Sagunt, the property developer of the land that is jointly owned by the Generalitat Valenciana and the state owned company Sepi (50% each), which have invested €132 million. Mercadona’s arrival at the industrial estate represents a breath of fresh air for the space that had become something of a problem for the Administration. Even though the majority of the site has been completed since 2008, only three companies currently operate there and most of the land is still up for sale.

The plot that Mercadona has acquired is well known, given that in 2007, it was awarded to the Ros Casares group to open its major steel works Brava Steel, but that was never built. Now it has been sold for 41% less.

There are currently 26 other plots of land for sale and experts expect that, thanks to the arrival of Mercadona, demand for those plots will now increase, after years of paralysis.

Original story: Expansión (by J.B. and A.C.A)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Valencia’s New Home Stock Has Fallen By 35% Since 2009

5 December 2016 – Levante EMV

According to a report by the Spanish Confederation of Construction Product Manufacturer Associations, the stock of new homes has decreased by 35% in the Community of Valencia since the collapse of the construction sector in 2009. The market has digested 26,926 properties in Valencia’s three provinces, leaving 92,782 unsold. The sales figures are very uneven, but the sector is now recovering on the Costa Blanca and in Alicante capital and the city of Valencia. In Valencia capital, there are just three hundred new unsold homes left, with some analysts estimating that as few as one hundred homes have yet to be sold; and the first developments to be promoted by Sareb, investment funds, financial institutions, cooperatives and overseas funds have already started.

The situation for Valencia’s construction companies is still complicated, to the extent that the President of the Association of Valencian Property Developers (APCV), José Luis Miguel, acknowledged yesterday that “anyone who owns land should hold onto it. A good decision would be to do nothing”, said José Luis Miguel, as he presented a study about the situation in the sector.

The property developers have commissioned a study to obtain a detailed understanding of how the sector is performing following the crisis, at a time when the “rules of the game have changed to allow the entry of new competitors, such as investment funds and financial institutions”. The author of the study pointed out that the sector is still at “historical lows”, despite the first signs of recovery being seen along the coast in Alicante and Valencia capital. “We are at the beginning of the (upwards) curve, but it is clear that the recovery is now being felt in certain areas”.

José Manuel Luis added that the volume of sales in the second-hand market are similar to those recorded in 2006 and 2007, but at that time they accounted for just 38% of all transactions, whereas now they account for 88%, compared with 12% involving new homes.

Weakness in demand

The head of the study underlined that the sector still perceives a weakness in terms of demand due to the difficulties involved in obtaining financing and because the banks are requesting deposits of 20% before they are prepared to grant mortgages. In any case, the greatest problem is that 40% of Valencians admit that they are unable to afford extraordinary expenses of €650 per month, which means that they are not able to buy. The only option for these people is to rent.

Nevertheless, the property developers are reluctant to commit themselves to building homes for rent because that requires the freezing of assets for a long time and the repayment period for such operations is twenty-five years.

José Luis Miguel lamented the situation in the sector and the disappearance of 90% of the property developers that existed before the crisis. “Many property developers were small and the crisis did away with them. The association used to have four hundred members and there are now only forty left”, he said.

Original story: Levante EMV

Translation: Carmel Drake