Finanical Times:
Spanish bubbly
Published: April 27 2007 03:00 | Last updated: April 27 2007 03:00
"You will always regret it if you do not buy now." The saying is so indelibly associated with real estate agents it might as well be branded on their foreheads. In Spain, it seems to have been very widely believed - at least until now.
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Focus on Spain: When building stops stone dead
By Mark Mulligan Published: March 6 2009 18:34 | Last updated: March 6 2009 18:34
On a narrow street in Madrid’s Bohemian Chueca district, there is a smart, renovated apartment block that should be teeming with trendy young urbanites. At the peak of Spain’s property boom between 2005 and 2006, similar properties were being sold off-plan to first homebuyers and speculators, the latter of which would flip them for quick profit.
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Spain’s recession: After the fiesta
By Victor Mallet Published: February 17 2009 20:13 | Last updated: February 17 2009 20:13
When a top soccer club in a country as fanatical about the game as Spain fails to pay its players, it is a warning that something may be drastically wrong with one of Europe’s most successful economies.
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Spanish real estate debts turn toxic
By Mark Mulligan and Victor Mallet Published: November 4 2008 00:11 | Last updated: November 4 2008 00:11
panish banks wisely shunned the toxic financial instruments that crippled several of their international peers. And they can meet their wholesale funding needs with the help of €150bn ($191bn) in emergency Spanish government guarantees and asset purchases
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End of housing bubble brings retrenchment
By Leslie Crawford Published: June 11 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 11 2008 03:00
One of the striking things about the past year is that there has been no banking crisis in Spain.The Bank of Spain, which supervises the financial system, took a dim view of the high-yield, high-risk instruments that have wreaked so much havoc in the US and Europe. So it banned offbalance sheet special purpose vehicles (SPVS).
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Spanish banks
Published: December 4 2008 02:00 | Last updated: December 4 2008 02:00
A few years ago, they paved over much of Spain with concrete. Now it is Spanish property companies that are piling up in the skip.
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Spanish banks take control of Metrovacesa
By Mark Mulligan in Madrid Published: December 4 2008 11:57 | Last updated: December 4 2008 11:57
Spain’s Sanahuja family on Thursday ceded control of Metrovacesa to creditors, less than two years after completing a highly-leveraged buyout of one of Spain’s biggest property companies.
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Spain's real estate debts hit lenders
By Victor Mallet and Mark Mulligan Published: November 4 2008 02:00 | Last updated: November 4 2008 02:00
Spanish banks wisely shunned the toxic financial instruments that crippled several of their international peers. And they can meet their wholesale funding needs with the help of €150bn ($191bn) in emergency Spanish government guarantees and asset purchases
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Britain and Spain: a tale of two house market bubbles
By Chris Giles and Victor Mallet Published: January 6 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 6 2009 02:00
For most of the 1990s, the euro was the big political question for both Spain and the UK. In Britain, the question was whether to join, while in Spain the concern was whether its economy was robust enough to qualify for membership.
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Spanish finance minister ‘to quit’
By Victor Mallet in Madrid Published: March 10 2009 16:03 | Last updated: March 10 2009 16:03
Pedro Solbes, Spanish finance minister, has for months made no secret of his desire to retire from the government, and signals have emerged from the government this week that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister, might grant his wish as soon as April.
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The Economist
Banks, bricks and mortar
From The Economist print edition Nov 6th 2008
An already solid financial system faces more consolidation. ON THE outskirts of every Spanish city and town, and even some villages, you will see neat rows of houses or blocks of flats in various stages of (in)completion.
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Spanish housing: Counting the costa
From The Economist print edition Apr 24th 2008
IN THE midst of a very modern financial crisis, it is easy to be wistful for a good old-fashioned approach to banking. Thanks in large part to stringent regulation, Spanish banks are rightly being applauded for the way they steered clear of toxic credit derivatives and shadowy off-balance-sheet exposures. However, they are finding it much harder to avoid Spain's cramping housing market
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The Global Property Guide
Severe housing glut in Spain, economy slides
Spain’s housing market is heading south. House prices are falling, and there is a glut of newly-built houses.House prices fell 4.27% in inflation-adjusted terms during the year to Q3 2008. The housing bubble burst in late-2007, and average house prices in Madrid, the capital, fell to €2,895 per sq. m. in Q3 2008, down 3.7% from Q4 2007, according to figures from the Bank of Spain.
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Prolonged housing slump looms in Spain
Last Updated: Dec 05, 2008
Spain’s housing market is heading south, with house prices falling and the glut of newly-built houses rising.After the housing bubble burst in late-2007, average house prices in Madrid, the capital, had fallen to €2,895 per sq. m. in Q3 2008, down 3.7% from Q4 2007, according to figures from the Bank of Spain.The average price of houses in Spain was €2,069 per sq. m. in Q3 2008, down 1.6% from its peak level in Q1 2008. The price falls in 2008 are in sharp contrast to double-digit price increases from 2001 to 2006.
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BBC News
A Rock of stability in troubled times
By Steve Kingstone BBC News, Gibraltar
At the Gibraltar border, a steady stream of pedestrians and vehicles enters the territory. It is mid-morning, and the Spanish are coming. Overhead, the Union flag flutters nervously, as it has, in one form or other, since Spain ceded the Rock to the UK in 1713. But in 2009 there is no cause for alarm. The incoming Spaniards are here not to demand sovereignty, but to shop.
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Euroresidents
Real estate crisis in Spain: Number of Spanish estate agents falls by half in 6 months
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2008
Until recently town halls were worrying about how to stop estate agent’s opening up new premises now the opposite seems to be the case. The crisis in the Spanish housing market has led to many estate agents closing down and a high number of premises being left empty. In just over six months ten of the largest chains of estate agent’s in Spain have closed more than half of their offices and two large franchises have had to call in administrators and two are up for sale.
Kyero.com
The RICS European Housing Review 2009 is commissioned and published by RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) which is the largest organisation for professionals in property, land, construction and related environmental issues worldwide.
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