Tag: renovation projects

Colau to Force 30% of New Build Homes to be Allocated to Social Housing

13 June 2018 – La Vanguardia

The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, is going to force house builders that are constructing new homes or undertaking major renovation projects in the Catalan capital to allocate 30% of their buildings to social housing. This proposal from the Government’s team will be taken to the municipal plenary at the end of this month and threatens to generate a fierce legal battle between property developers and the Town Hall. The legal consequences are expected to be even more profound than those brought about by the Special Urban Plan for Tourist Accommodation (Peuat), which has been the subject of more than one hundred appeals.

The initiative proposes two modifications to the existing General Metropolitan Plan (PGM), which will need agreement from the municipal groups if they are to be approved initially. One of them establishes the bases to oblige private property developers to contribute to the creation of social housing. The other involves extending the Town Hall’s right of first refusal across the whole city, in such a way that the administration will have preferential rights for the acquisition of estates in all sale and purchase transactions.

This proposal can be traced back to a requirement launched a few months ago by the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), which demanded that the Town Hall apply this percentage – 30% – to property developers in an obligatory to expand the public stock of housing. Ada Colau, who in February hired Carlos Macías, one of the spokesmen for the PAH, as an advisor, is hereby looking to satisfy that entity, for which she used to work as an activist and which has openly criticised her housing policies on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless, the urban modification project, which the BComú government has forged with the utmost secrecy and without the involvement of any trade associations or other affected agents, has infuriated the sector, which warns of the dangerous effects that this measure may generate. They include the risk of paralysing real estate activity at a time of recovery and the consequent legal battle to annul these plans.

The document, prepared by municipal experts in collaboration with Barcelona Regional, has been sent to municipal groups to start conversations and try to make progress in a meeting today towards its approval by the Urban Planning Committee next week. After overcoming that process, if the first obstacle is indeed overcome, the proposal will be discussed in the plenary. Even so, it still has a long way to go before it could come into force.

The modification would affect all new build or major renovation projects that have an urbanistic housing roof (surface area) of more than 600 m2, in practice, the vast majority of real estate developments in the city. According to the document, they would be obliged to “allocate at least 30% of those roofs to public housing”. The properties could be sold or leased but must be located in the same building (…). If the proposal goes ahead and overcomes all of the legal processes, it will become normal for residents of luxury homes in the city to live alongside residents of social housing properties (…).

If the current rate of construction in Barcelona continues over the next few years, if Ada Colau’s government manages to push through her proposal and if the inevitable legal appeals rule in favour of the Town Hall, then the initiative to allocate 30% of new build homes to social housing could increase the city’s public housing stock by 400 units per year. In 2017, 1,373 new homes were started in the Catalan capital (…).

Original story: La Vanguardia (by Silvia Angulo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Forcadell: New Home Sales Rose by 28% in Barcelona in H2 2017

21 February 2018 – Eje Prime

Barcelona is growing with new homes, even though they are more expensive than they were five years ago. The Catalan capital is experiencing significant growth in the sale of new homes from its residential stock, despite the socio-political situation that has been rumbling along for several months. During the second half of 2017, the sector saw the number of new house sales grow by 28% in the province of Barcelona compared to the same period in 2016, according to a report from the real estate consultancy Forcadell.

In addition to transactions, the price of new homes and the number of developments also increased, although the consultancy indicates that the current supply of homes in this segment is still scarce in the city of Barcelona, due to the lack of space. The only land reserves left are located in the 22@ district and in Poblenou, “which makes an increase in building renovation activity very necessary in the Catalan capital. Currently, such activity only accounts for 3.5% of new residential developments”, according to Forcadell.

During the second half of the year, the report highlights the activity recorded in the months of July and November, with significant peaks in the number of new home sales: 717 and 607, respectively, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE). In this sense, and given the lack of land in the Catalan capital, the Barcelona market is expanding towards its neighbouring municipalities, such as el Barcelonès, el Baix Llobregat and el Vallès Occidental.

Within the city of Barcelona, the district that had the largest supply of new build homes between June and December was Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, whilst Ciutat Vella and l’Eixample put the most renovated assets on the market. Prices in the capital grew by 2.7% in half-yearly terms, with an overall average price of €5,439/m2. In this area, Sant Andreu was the neighbourhood with the highest increase in prices; and for this year and next, Nou Barris is set to see the highest increases in the price of new homes, according to Forcadell. The overall trend for this year is also expected to be bullish.

Forecasts from the consultancy firm indicate that construction activity in Barcelona will continue to increase over the coming months, above all in the towns adjacent to the city. Nevertheless, the lack of buildable land and the delay in the granting of licences may water down the good times that the property development sector will enjoy from 2019 onwards.

Rental market – mismatch between supply and demand

The rental market, which has been so in vogue recently, suffered from an important mismatch between supply and demand for rental homes costing between €850 and €1,000. This situation has resulted from an increase in the interest from clients in the metropolitan area.

In terms of demand, Forcadell indicates that during the second half of the year (…) rental prices continued to rise.

In this way, the report from the consultancy firm places the average price of a rental home at €15.50/m2/month, up by 1.9% with respect to the same period in 2016. Ciutat Vella is the district that registered the highest rents in the Catalan capital, of €19/m2/month, but Forcadell estimates that the trend will stabilise in the city in 2018 (…).

Moreover, the sale of second-hand homes recorded a YoY increase of 5.1%, with 31,485 operations. According to Forcadell, l’Eixample was the district with the largest supply of homes in the second half of the year, followed by Sant Martí, Ciutat Vella and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.

The sales prices of second-hand homes increased by 1.7% between the first and second halves of 2017, to record an increase of 6.8% with respect to the end of 2016. The average price paid for a home measuring 90 m2, with three or four bedrooms, in Barcelona was €2,952/m2.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bonavista to Invest €100M in Luxury Homes in Barcelona

5 December 2017 – La Vanguardia

The property developer Bonavista Developments will invest €100 million over the next three years in luxury housing in Barcelona. It will focus on both new-building developments and renovation projects, primarily in the upper area of the Catalan capital, as well as in El Eixample.

Specifically, the company has recently started work on the renovation of a building at number 34 Calle Girona in Barcelona. It has also launched two new build developments on the beachfront in Gavà Mar (Barcelona) and Calle Saüc in the Barcelona neighbourhood of Sarrià, according to a statement issued by the company on Tuesday.

Until now, the most iconic project carried out by Bonavista Developments has been the renovation of the modernist Casa Burés building, which involved an investment of €40 million and which is expected to be completed in 2018.

Bonavista Developments, associated with the British fund Europa Capital, focuses on both domestic and international clients and has identified the figure of a new buyer who spends periods of between two and three months in Barcelona.

The partners of Bonavista Developments, founded in 2014, are Jacinto Roqueta, Àlex Miquel and Marcus Donaldson, and the company manages the investments of Europa Capital, a British manager controlled by the Japanese group Mitsubishi Estate, which channels investments from institutions, such as insurance companies and pension funds, from Europe and the USA.

Original story: La Vanguardia 

Translation: Carmel Drake

CBRE: New Build House Prices In Zaragoza Will Rise By 3% In 2017

28 March 2017 – El Periódico de Aragón

The price per square metre of new housing in Zaragoza grew by 1% last year and is expected to rise by 3% on average in 2017. Those were the comments expressed yesterday by the CEO of the real estate consultancy CBRE, Miguel Ángel Gómez, in the Aragonese capital, during his presentation of the latest report about the evolution of the housing market in Aragón.

A moderate reactivation in terms of development activity and a recovery in demand meant that the positive trend in prices that began in 2015 continued in 2016. In this way, the average price per square metre of a new build home in Zaragoza amounted to €1,976/m2 in 2016. By district, Centro and Universidad were the areas that saw the highest price rises last year, increasing to €3,800/m2 and €3,150/m2, respectively, as a result of the release onto the market of several iconic projects.

Those price rises went hand in hand with a recovery in the rate of house sales, which rose by 14.7% in Aragón last year with respect to 2015. According to the latest data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics, 10,700 operations were recorded in total.

One of the indicators that reflects the improvement in the behaviour of the new build residential market was the rate of sales. Whilst in 2015, it took 18 months to sell an entire development, now, 75% of new developments are being sold off-plan within the first six months.

Fewer homes are available

CBRE’s report identifies a downwards trend in the supply of available new build homes in the city, as a result of an increase in demand and only moderate development activity. In this regard, Parque Venecia, Miralbueno and Arrabal-Barrio de Jesús are the districts that have the greatest availability of new homes. Meanwhile, La Muela, Cuarte de Huerva and Puebla de Alfindén are the towns that have the most stock.

By contrast, there is a shortage of residential land in the central area, which led to the launch of several renovation projects in 2016. Nevertheless, CBRE thinks that those homes will not cover demand. On the other hand, the consultancy firm forecasts an increase in the number of transactions involving land in the area around Miguel Servet, Avenida Cataluña, Miralbueno, Rosales del Canal, Valdespartera and Arcosur this year. The price per square metre of land in Aragón amounted to around €600/m2 during 2016 and whereby exceeding the national average (€400/m2).

Original story: El Periódico de Aragón (by Alicia Gracia)

Translation: Carmel Drake