Tag: fotocasa.es

RE In 2016: The Experts Are Cautiously Optimistic

31 December 2015 – El Economista

Experts in the real estate sector continue to talk about the improvement experienced in the market in 2015 with caution; and they consider that 2016 will be the year of stabilisation following almost a decade of severe crisis. But, above all, the experts believe that we will see new homes being constructed once again next year.

That is according to the statistics published by the Ministry of Development for construction permits (…).

Given that it takes around 18 months for a new development to be constructed, in 2016 we can expect to see the inauguration of properties for which permits were granted at the end of 2014 and during 2015.

In this way, the President of the Spain’s Property Developers’ Association (APCE), Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado, believes that investment funds and Socimis will both continue to be key players in 2016, although he says that the role of “property developers will become increasingly important and we will probably see (more) joint operations between these players”.

Such operations are already taking place in certain areas where new build properties are scarce, with investors approaching traditional property developers to leverage their experience in the sector in exchange for providing financial muscle. (…).

Other forecasts for next year

With this outlook, Beatriz Toribio, Head of Research at fotocasa.es expects to see a YoY increase in the price of second-hand housing in 2016, for the first time in eight years, as well as a lower rate of growth in terms of sales volumes, not because of a decrease in activity, but because the comparison will be made against figures from 2015, which will not have the same “step effect” that we have seen in 2015, with respect to the 2014 figures. (…).

Stabilisation or recovery

Against this backdrop, the experts have differing opinions when it comes to naming the current situation in the real estate sector. Juan Fernández-Aceytuno, the Director General of Sociedad de Tasación, thinks that 2016 could be the year of “consolidation”, but warns that several uncertainties still exist in the market.

Beatriz Toribio also thinks that it is still too soon to be talking about recovery because at the moment, house sales represent just one third of the volumes recorded ten years ago”, and so she prefers to describe it as the “normalisation” of the sector.

The main challenges facing the sector

In terms of the main challenges facing the real estate sector in 2016, Toribio believes that the main one is having the capacity to construct homes that new buyers actually want to purchase, in terms of quality, design and energy saving features, at prices that they are willing to pay, as well as reducing the housing stock at the same time.

According to Fernández-Aceytuno, the sector needs to open the market up to the demand that has been building up during the crisis to drain the stock of unsold properties. Finally, APCE has said that the sector’s main task for 2016 is to cultivate “more transparency” and to improve its image.

Property developers want a Housing Minister

In any case, given the political uncertainty following the general elections on 20 December, property developers in Spain believe that “having a Secretary of State or Minister for Housing would be more than justified” given the sector’s weight in terms of GDP. (…).

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

Second-Hand House Prices Have Fallen By 44.5% Since 2007

25 November 2015 – El Economista

Second-hand house prices in Spain have decreased by €105,999, on average, since they reached their maximums in April 2007, according to the latest analysis from the real estate portal fotocasa.es. It reports a cumulative price decrease of 44.5% since the start of the crisis, when the cost of buying a home measuring 80m2 amounted to €236,174, on average.

“Second-hand homes are driving up the real estate sector at the moment. In addition to the extensive supply, these homes are more attractive in terms of prices, since they allow more room for negotiation and they are levied with lower taxes”, says the Head of Research at fotocasa.es, Beatriz Toribio.

By autonomous region

In terms of the reduction in second-hand house prices by autonomous regions, Cataluña is the region where prices have decreased the most. Specifically, sales prices have decreased there by an average of €142 ,512 in eight years, which represents a decrease of 46.1%.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Extremadura is the autonomous region that has seen the lowest decrease in sales prices in recent years. There, the average reduction amounts to €59,745, after prices reached maximum in March 2007; this represents a decrease of 39.6%.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

Spain property: Madrid waits for the signal to ‘go’

27 April 2015 – Financial Times

Is the influx of Latin American buyers a sign the capital has turned a corner?

Over the past decade and a half, making even a modest investment in Madrid’s housing market has been a bit like taking a rollercoaster ride. Since the market reached its peak in early 2008, average house prices in Spain have dropped by 35 to 40 per cent, according to a report issued in March by the Spanish Savings Banks Foundation, known by its acronym Funcas. New developments on the outskirts of Madrid have been some of the hardest hit.

Other figures suggest an even greater drop in values: also in March, the Spanish property portal Fotocasa.es calculated that the average home in Spain has lost 45 per cent of its value since the peak of the Spanish housing boom, with values in Madrid (a 44.6 per cent drop) representative, more or less, of Spain as a whole.

But both Funcas and Fotocasa.es report glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel: Fotocasa.es recorded a 1 per cent increase in home prices in Madrid in February, while Funcas says that the Spanish housing market is now in an “incipient, gradual recovery”.

As in Barcelona and the Balearic Islands, where small price rises have also been recorded in recent months, overseas buyers are helping to create a mild sense of optimism.

In Madrid, the most enthusiastic foreign homebuyers are heading from across the Atlantic, rather than Europe, according to Alberto Costillo, prime residential director at Knight Frank Spain. A “perfect storm” is bringing a new wave of wealthy Latin American house-hunters to Madrid, particularly from Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.

“Madrid has advantages of culture and language, and Latin American buyers have long thought of Madrid as a safe haven. But with an improving Spanish economy, and the recent fall in the value of the euro [Latin Americans are more likely to have savings in dollars than euros], they see now see a real opportunity here,” says Costillo.

With its pretty boating lake and rows of statues, many wealthy foreign buyers look to purchase property near the city’s celebrated Retiro Park.

In the grid-like Salamanca district adjacent to Retiro Park, Knight Frank is selling a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with 187 sq metres of living space, parquet floors and air conditioning in a building dating from the early 20th century for €1.47m.

In the well-heeled neighbourhood of El Viso, part of the Chamartín district north of the city centre, a 402 sq metre duplex apartment with four en suite bedrooms and a txoko — a combined cooking and dining space more commonly found in homes in the Basque Country — has an asking price of €4m. On sale through the agency Rimontgó, the unit has three parking spaces and the building has a pool and a gym for residents’ use.

“[El Viso is] quiet and exclusive, but also well-connected with the rest of the city and within easy reach of the downtown,” says José Ribes, director-general of the agency handling the sale. “This is a part of town most associated with aristocrats and intellectuals, but in recent years it has attracted people working in the financial sector, politicians and sportsmen.”

Salamanca and Chamartín are home to many of Madrid’s best restaurants. The capital has 12 Michelin-starred restaurants, compared with 23 in Barcelona. But Madrid is the only one of the two cities with a three-star restaurant — David Muñoz’s DiverXO, where dishes are called “canvases” and diners are asked to arrive “with an open mind”.

Central districts of Madrid are densely populated, but some of the city’s satellite communities, particularly to the northwest, offer more leg room for buyers. In Pozuelo de Alarcón, nestling among pine trees and benefiting from cool breezes from the nearby Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, a gated housing estate called La Finca is home to some of the capital’s wealthiest residents, including footballers from Real Madrid such as Cristiano Ronaldo.

Typical of the sprawling, cubist-style homes at La Finca is a five-bedroom, seven-bathroom house with almost 2,000 sq metres of living space. The property has a two-bedroom housekeeper’s apartment, a lift, indoor and outdoor pools, a gym, a sauna, a cinema, a wine cellar and a carport for six vehicles. On sale through La Finca Real Estate for €11m, the house stands on a plot of just over a hectare. However, according to one estate agent who prefers to remain anonymous, potential buyers are sometimes put off La Finca “because of its reputation as a playground for soccer stars”.

On Calle de Serrano, a broad, tree-lined avenue in the Salamanca district which is sometimes referred to as Madrid’s golden mile for its high-end shopping, there are few signs of the economic downturn, dubbed la crisis in Spain. However, the recession has hit some of the city’s public infrastructure.

Guillermo Bernardo, a former banker with two young daughters who now runs his own cabinet-making business, points to cutbacks in the maintenance of neighbourhood parks and gardens. “The Retiro is Madrid’s calling card, and it’s immaculate, but there is less money these days to clean and repair local playgrounds,” he says. “The perception that most people have is that the state of the economy hasn’t changed a lot but we may be about to turn a corner. Nothing is forever, not even la crisis”.

Buying guide

● Buyers should budget 6 per cent of the sale price to cover land registry taxes

● Estate agents typically charge vendors a commission of 3 to 5 per cent

● Madrid has the third largest metropolitan area in the EU by population size

● Units in a building without a lift are unpopular and may be difficult to resell

● Madrid has hot, dry summers and cool, usually sunny, winters

● Violent crime is rare but pickpocketing and bag snatching can be a problem

What you can buy for . . .

€500,000 A modern, 90 sq metre flat with two bedrooms in the Chamartín district of Madrid

€1m A 140 sq metre, three-bedroom apartment in the Salamanca district, within walking distance of Retiro Park

€5m A seven-bedroom house in El Viso with an outdoor pool on a plot measuring 1,000 sq metres

Original story: Financial Times (by Nick Foster)

Edited by: Carmel Drake

Fotocasa: How Long Does It Take To Rent Out Or Sell A Home?

3 March 2015 – El Economista

On average it takes 4.5 months to rent a house and 11 months to sell one.

On average it takes four and a half months to rent a home, whereas it takes around eleven months to sell a property, according to a survey conducted by fotocasa.es based on 2014 data.

Specifically, 90% of owners who rented out their homes in 2014 did so in less than six months; 7% did so in seven to twelve months; 2% did so in thirteen to twenty-four months; and just 1% took more than two years to rent out their homes.

Why it is quicker to rent out a property?

In terms of the factors that allow property owners to speed up the rental process, the real estate website indicates that 49% of owners that leased properties in 2014 had to reduce the initial asking price and did so by around 10%, on average, equivalent to €81, the lowest reduction in the last four years.

Nevertheless, of the 28% of users that did not manage to let their properties in 2014, 48% reduced the price by 12%, equivalent to €92. Moreover, 56% of those that did not rent out their properties, lowered the price between and first and the fifth month, 35% reduced it between the sixth and eleventh month, and 8% reduced it after a year.

Experts at fotocasa.es state that “the price of rental housing will continue to decrease throughout 2015 because supply is ample and varied, although the decreases will be small, just a few decimal points, and they will be experienced alongside increases in some parts of Spain.

Other findings from the study show that 42% of the users surveyed state that the properties they put up for rent in 2014 were their own primary residences, followed by 28% who rented out a second home and 8% who let out homes that they had inherited.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bank Of Spain: Demand For Home Loans Increases Again

28 January 2015 – Expansión

The bank loan survey carried out by the Bank of Spain and the main Spanish financial institutions shows that “requests from families for home loans increased in January, after remaining stable during the previous three months in Spain and continued their progress in the Eurozone”. The report explains that “the main drivers of this development was an improvement in the prospects of the housing marketing and an increase in consumer confidence”.

Just yesterday, INE reported that the mortgage market grew in November for the sixth consecutive month, this time by 14.2% with respect to November 2013. Specifically, 15,900 new home loans were signed in November, 10.1% fewer than the 17,687 taken out in October. The average mortgage amounted to €104,817 in November, compared with €99,866 in the previous month, representing an increase of 5%.

Management of fotocasa.es, the real estate portal, interviewed by Efe, considers that these data confirm that “the desired reactivation of mortgage financing” was achieved in 2014, as a result of “increased activity in the economy, better prospects for the real estate market and the need for banks to do business following the liquidity crisis”.

In this sense, the Bank of Spain’s survey explains that the criteria for approving new loans were “somewhat less restrictive” for home loans than for unsecured loans.

In terms of corporate loans “the growth in requests for loans by SMEs was higher than those for large companies in Spain”.

Original story: Expansión (by Y. González)

Translation: Carmel Drake