David Beckham has the looks, the talent and – perhaps most importantly – the bank balance to make many green with envy. But it seems David Beckham’s good fortune where money is concerned improved when he signed for Real Madrid.

His transfer to the Spanish giants Real Madrid was not just a great move as far as his footballing career was concerned. In fact he left Manchester United just as the Spanish tax system was changed to benefit foreigners in an effort to draw more highly-paid professionals to these shores.

Designed to be part of the government’s budget for the 2004 financial year it came into operation on 1 January 2004 and basically allowed foreign employees to be treated as “non-resident” for tax purposes even though they were living and working in Spain. In simple terms a foreigner since then is entitled to cut his rate of income tax from a punishing top rate of 45 percent of his earnings to just 24 percent overall.

Former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar’s conservative government altered the tax laws to make it more attractive for foreigners to live here and to help companies that employ many workers from abroad — who are often paid high wages.

This law has helped the highly-influential and affluent bosses of most of Spain’s biggest football clubs as it leaves them with substantially lower wage bills and hence even bigger spending power to bring more stars to their domestic game.

Without a doubt, the law change was engineered to help football clubs to reduce their wage bills as it was reckoned if the players were paying much less tax, the cost to the clubs would be lower.

And though it might seem like these pampered prima donnas on the football pitch are having it all their way, it is not just a perk for the rich and famous. Sources from the Spanish Treasury Department emphasised that even though the new tax rules were principally brought in to help footballers, the tax change applies to anyone who is working here as a professional.

This tax provision is therefore available to all foreign professionals, from the executives with multinationals to researchers or any other salaried expat who works for a national company.

There are a few qualifications to which foreigners have to submit however:

1. They cannot have worked in Spain for 10 years before – a measure to stop tax cheats
2. They must work on the payroll of a Spanish company, though this can be a subsidiary of another multinational
3. The application is be taxed as non-resident must be filed with the Spanish tax authority within 6 months of taking up the position

Finally, don’t think that it always beneficial to claim for this special tax treatment. Though the overall rate of 24 percent is very attractive and significantly lower than the highest rate currently applicable, it’s only of interest to high-income employees.

The downside of this non-resident regime is that the tax payer cannot claim the normal tax allowances and deductions applicable to resident tax payers so, as a general rule, it will only be of interest when the individual expects to earn in excess of EUR 70,000 -75,000 in a full tax year.

To make the correct decision about claiming the tax status or not, it’s best to speak to a tax advisor.

Story from Expatica

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So what happened? Well, figures for January from the INE show that, excluding social housing, there were exactly 34,000 sales in January, up 1.4% over 12 months. A year-on-year increase of 1.4% is no big deal, but it’s a much needed respite when it is the first time in 3 years that the market has actually grown. And it’s difficult to dismiss it as a one off, because it is clear that the market has now found a floor around 30,000 transactions per month.

But, of course, we have to keep in mind that the market in January was 56% smaller than it was in January 2007, when it stood at 77,400 sales per month. So a year-on-year improvement is good news, but peak-to-trough the market is still just a shadow of its former self. Until that situation changes, there’s not much to cheer about.

If you dig into the figures you find that most of the improvement is now coming from resales, not new builds, as the chart shows. New build sales kept the market from total annihilation last year, but I’ve been warning for months that, sooner or later, they might fall off a cliff.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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As a consequence of the latest reduction in Euribor, repayments on a typical annually resetting mortgage (150,000 euros, 25 years, Euribor +0.75%) will fall by around 65 Euros a month, or 780 euros a year.

When Euribor rose a fraction in December I suggested that, after 14 consecutive months of falls, a change of trend might be in the offing. Despite a return to declines in January and February, that still probably holds true. Flipping around is often consistent with a period of change.

Most of the savings from the fall in Euribor have already been had, and Euribor is unlikely to go much lower. By March borrowers on annually resetting mortgages will hardly notice any savings, even if Euribor goes a bit lower.

Euribor is based on interest rates set by the European Central Bank. Base rates are expected to remain at 1% for the first quarter of 2010, rising gradually after that.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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Spanish property prices fell by 5.5% over 12 months to the end of February, according to the property price index published monthly by Tinsa, one of Spain’s leading appraisal companies. However, prices inland fell by only 3.8%, which is similar to last month’s 3.6%, and confirms a general trend towards smaller price declines. At this rate prices of inland property will be stable or rising again sometime in the next few months.

The graph and table data represent the year-on-year evolution of Spanish property values. For example, if the value for August 2009 would be -3.9, then this means that average property prices in August 2009 are 3.9% lower than they were a year earlier, in August 2008.

The graph and table on this page contain up to date information for the past 13 months. For more information, please look at earlier monthly reports, or the historical overview since January 2001.

The graph and table data are based on actual property valuations, as established by one of Spain’s larget independent property valuation companies, Tinsa S.A. They are not based on asking prices or (under)declared selling prices, nor on the statistics as provided by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, and are therefore considered to be the most acurate and reliable source for this kind of information.

Related posts:

1. Spanish House Price Index – January 2010
2. Spanish House Price Index – October 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – December 2009

Beatriz Corredor, Minister for Housing

“The transactions in the fourth quarter represent a rise of 4.1% with respect to the same period last year, this being the first year-on-year rise since the fourth quarter of 2006,” goes the first sentence, in bold, of the Ministry’s press release.

In fact, if you just look at the ordinary housing market, the uptick was even better. Excluding social housing there were 116,664 house sales in Q4, a rise of 5.5%. Sales in the province of Malaga went up 3.6%. Regrettably, that’s where the good news ends.

Take the year as a whole, there 413,112 transactions last year, a fall of 19% compared to the previous year, and a whopping 46% down on 2007. Even the Q4 was down 33% compared to 2 years ago.

Some regions did better than others. Looking at a selection of regions popular with holiday home buyers, the inland province of Teruel suffered the most in 2009, down 36%, followed by Las Palmas in The Canaries, down 32%. At the other end of the scale, Spain’s two big cities did the best, down just 1.7% in Madrid and 3.9% in Barcelona.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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According to the latest figures, for December and therefore the whole of 2009, new mortgage lending fell again last year, by 22% in volume terms (to 653,173), and by 34% in value terms (to 76.8 billion Euros). These are the lowest levels in both volume and value terms since the INE started publishing this data series in 2003.

The number of new mortgages signed have been falling now for 3 years, and the value of new mortgages has been falling even faster. That means there is less money around to spend on property, which puts downward pressure on prices.

Mortgage lending has been falling in both volume and value for the last 3 years, though the rate of decline improved slightly in 2009. That means it is still falling heavily, just not by as much as last year.

Also, over the last 2 years, new mortgage lending has been falling more in value terms than in volume terms. That means that the average mortgage value is also falling, as borrowers take out smaller mortgages. The average value of new mortgages last year was 117,688 Euros, down 16% on 2008.

Why are people taking out smaller mortgages? Firstly, because the banks have tightened up their lending criteria, and now demand bigger deposits. But also because Spanish property prices are falling, so borrowers don’t need such big mortgages as before.

Peak to trough, new mortgage lending is down 51% by volume, and 59% by value, compared to 2006, when the market peaked. That is a massive decline in the amount of money around chasing property.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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3. Euribor Falls For 12th Consecutive Month

In its first official comment on the matter, the IMF told investors that Spain should not be placed in the same boat as debt-laden Greece.

“Regarding Spain, we do see differences between their circumstances and those of other parts of the euro area,” IMF spokesman David Hawley said, dismissing the idea that Greece’s financial woes could spread beyond its borders.

Hawley said Spain has robust economic statistics and institutions with a solid track record and credibility, adding that the Iberian nation also had strong fiscal starting positions prior to the global recession.

That assessment echoed the message Spanish Economy Secretary Jose Manuel Campa has brought to Paris and London and plans to reiterate at closed-door meetings with investors in New York and Boston.

Campa said in an interview with Efe-DowJones that when investors see that the diagnosis of the situation has been correct and that the measures that the Spanish government has taken are adequate, “it will generate a lot of reassurance.”

Spain’s investment waters were calmer Thursday after the government sold a 5-billion-euro 15-year bond the day before in an auction that was oversubscribed, proving – experts said – the government’s ability to raise financing.

The country paid a risk premium of 85 basis points in the bond issue over the benchmark swap rate. By comparison, the risk premium demanded by holders of 10-year Greek bonds over Germany’s 10-year benchmark bonds rose Thursday to 328 basis points.

Hawley stressed Thursday that Greece’s budget deficit woes date back to before the global recession, while Spain had a surplus equal to 2 percent of GDP at the start of the financial downturn.

Story from Herald Tribune

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Spanish property prices fell by 5.5% over 12 months to the end of January, according to the property price index published monthly by Tinsa, one of Spain’s leading appraisal companies. However, prices inland fell by only 3.6%, which is a mayor improvement on the -6.8% last month, and confirms a general trend towards smaller price declines. At this rate prices of inland property will be stable or rising again sometime in the next few months.

The graph and table data represent the year-on-year evolution of Spanish property values. For example, if the value for August 2009 would be -3.9, then this means that average property prices in August 2009 are 3.9% lower than they were a year earlier, in August 2008.

The graph and table on this page contain up to date information for the past 13 months. For more information, please look at earlier monthly reports, or the historical overview since January 2001.

The graph and table data are based on actual property valuations, as established by one of Spain’s larget independent property valuation companies, Tinsa S.A. They are not based on asking prices or (under)declared selling prices, nor on the statistics as provided by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, and are therefore considered to be the most acurate and reliable source for this kind of information.

Related posts:

1. Spanish House Price Index – February 2010
2. Spanish House Price Index – October 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – December 2009

Spain may be a surprise entry given that it is still struggling with high unemployment and a shrinking economy, but with average house prices falling by 8 per cent in the 12 months from September 2008, this may be the time to pick up property on the cheap.

And while Spain has been going through turbulent times, it is nevertheless still a firm favourite as a lifestyle holiday destination, despite all the bad press of late.

The British love affair with Spain shows few signs of abating. Spain came out as the top destination for international money transfers at the Post Office, as well as the cheapest place to live within the eurozone, according to its holiday costs barometer.

The full story: The Indepentent

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Foreign currency brokers have seen a 40% increase in clients buying euros, while new enquiries have shot up by 24%.

“A number of our clients in the market for euros are taking advantage of the improved exchange rate and buying their euros for overseas mortgage payments, property purchases etc now,” World First’s head of private clients, Elisabeth Dobson, told OPP.

“They are delighted to be getting a rate that is up to 12% better than the lows we have seen over the last 17 months. There are a number of clients who will have been holding off on property purchases and overseas investments due to sterling’s weakness against the euro. This rate move will certainly spur people on.”

A run of economic good news from the UK, including a fall in unemployment, rising inflation and an anticipation that the country is out of recession, has helped increase the pound’s strength. Meanwhile, economic problems in Spain and Greece have weakened consumer confidence in the euro.

Not all currency brokers have seen a substantial increase in business. “€1.15 is a bit of psychological barrier but most clients are still waiting for the magic €1.20 number,” Marc Morley-Freer, commercial director at Moneycorp, told OPP. “After the UK election we could see improvements that could push people to make lifestyle purchases – things are too uncertain before then.”

World First’s chief economist Jeremy Cook remains bullish following sterling’s 9% growth over the last year. “I don’t think this run in particular will last because it has happened so quickly, but the pound could be up to around €1.22 by the end of the year,” he told OPP.

Story from OPP

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The volume of loan capital amounted to 6010.5 million, 10.1% less than the same month in 2008, which means that the average amount borrowed fell by 11.7% to 115,492 euros. Despite the rebound year in November, the cumulative comparison of January and November 2009 to the same period in 2008 showed an overall decrease of 23.2%.

Savings banks granted the most mortgages (52.2%), followed by banks (36.6%) and other financial institutions (10.9%). As for borrowed capital, savings banks granted 45.3% of the total, banks provided 43.0% and other financial institutions contributed 11.7%.

The average interest rate of savings banks was 4.25% and the average term was 23 years, while in banks, the average rate was 4.03% and the average term was 21 years. The variable interest mortgage remains the preferred option in 95.2% of mortgages, compared with only 4.8% opting for fixed rate. The Euribor was reported as the reference rate that was used in 88.7% of the mortgages.

The data also shows that in November, 40,156 mortgages had their conditions changed, 35.3 percent more than last year – 32,379 of these were changes in the conditions of a mortgage with the same institution (42.4% higher), mostly being attributed to mortgage payers taking advantage of lower interest rates and longer terms.

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Last month I reported that Euribor rose a fraction in December, suggesting that, after 14 consecutive months of falls, a change of trend might be in the offing. Despite a return to declines in January, that is still probably the case. Flipping around is often consistent with a period of change.

After January’s fall, Euribor is now 53% lower than it was a year ago. That means borrowers on annually resetting mortgages can expect some relief in their mortgage payments. As a consequence of the latest reduction in Euribor, repayments on a typical mortgage (150,000 Euros, 25 years, Euribor +0.75%) will fall by around 100 Euros a month, or 1,200 Euros a year.

Most of the savings from the fall in Euribor have already been had, and Euribor is unlikely to go much lower. By March borrowers on annually resetting mortgages will hardly notice any savings, even if Euribor goes a bit lower.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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In the foreground there were sheep grazing on rough, undeveloped grasslands; in the background mountains.

When built, the bungalow would sit at the end of a row of white homes, with a triangle of land that would remain undeveloped at the end. There would be nothing across the road from us apart from a few buildings in the distance and then the mountains beyond that. We had our own part of the Spanish dream, having saved for decades to fulfil it.

Ten years later and everyone now knows how the developers got greedy, the cranes took over, promises were broken and property values plummeted; in some cases bizarre land laws meant that people lost their homes.

That story has been told over and over again. But this is not a piece complaining of the ruthlessness of the Spanish authorities, fraud on the Costas, nor the overzealous developers.

The value of our house has of course dropped and the weak pound has taken its toll. The developers’ broke their promises – high rises now obscure our view of the hills – and this is no sleepy Spanish idyll. But it is a place boasting the best climate in Europe. It remains five minutes from the beach, and provides a sanctuary we are fortunate to enjoy from the bitter grey British winter.

Thanks to Ryanair it is cheap and easy to get to. And while the British influence is increasingly widespread in this part of the world (the Costa Blanca since you ask), speak a little Spanish – and it doesn’t have to be fluent – and the locals will cheerfully speak it back. The pound is weak, but that wont last forever and the Menú del Dia is still a bargain.

The value of our home may have dropped but like most of the Brits with houses in the Med, but this is not our first home and it is not our retirement fund. This is not because we are loaded; far from it, we bought it to enjoy it, which we have many many times.

The newspapers may be full of reports that the dream of owning second homes in Spain is dead, but for the majority of people – at least those who are in it for the lifestyle not a money-making opportunity – it’s alive and well.

That is not to say that people in our situation haven’t been faced with property nightmares, but that over the years the coverage and hype surrounding this has been disproportionate: for the fortunate majority the Spanish property dream is not dead.

Story from Citywire

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The Tinsa property price index for December shows average prices falling by 6.6% over the last 12 months, the same rate as which prices fell in the 12 months to November. So this represents a pause in the trend towards moderating price declines. Last month we reported that, on present trends, prices will be rising again in a few months. Well, not if the latest figures have anything to do with it.

On the other hand, the price of property in the coast, where most foreigners buy holiday homes, did continue its positive trend, with prices down 7.6% over 12 months, compared to 8.9% last month. On a peak to present basis, prices have fallen the most on the coast (-20.8%).

The graph and table data represent the year-on-year evolution of Spanish property values. For example, if the value for August 2009 would be -3.9, then this means that average property prices in August 2009 are 3.9% lower than they were a year earlier, in August 2008.

The graph and table on this page contain up to date information for the past 13 months. For more information, please look at earlier monthly reports, or the historical overview since January 2001.

The graph and table data are based on actual property valuations, as established by one of Spain’s larget independent property valuation companies, Tinsa S.A. They are not based on asking prices or (under)declared selling prices, nor on the statistics as provided by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, and are therefore considered to be the most acurate and reliable source for this kind of information.

Related posts:

1. Spanish House Price Index – September 2009
2. Spanish House Price Index – November 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – October 2009

The volume of new residential mortgages signed in October was 52,451, down 18% compared to the same month last year, and 16% compared to September, according to the latest figures from the INE. In value terms new residential mortgages were down 31% to 6 billion Euros. New mortgage signings in Spain have now fallen for 28 consecutive months, often by double digits. That illustrates the severity of Spain’s property crash, even if official figures disguise the extent to which property prices have fallen. The average new mortgage value also fell, by 15.8% to 113,882 Euros.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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However, a quick phone call later and €62 of that transfer fee had been refunded. Here’s how to do the same with your bank.

In September of this year the European Commission passed regulation 924/2009 which states that charges for transactions offered by your bank have to be the same whether the payment is national or cross-border.

In our case, our bank charges €1 for national transfers, yet persists in applying a percentage based charge for international transfers.

We simply had to remind them of this EC regulation, and hey presto, we had been refunded.

If your bank is less willing to cooperate, you can dob them in to the Spanish national authority and make a formal complaint by emailing The Bank of Spain.

If that fails, you can also and ask the Bank of Spain to mediate a resolution to the problem.

More information about EC Regulation 924/2009 can be found at the European Commission website and Wikipedia.

Story by Martin Dell, Kyero.

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Economic analysts expect Euribor to stay around current low levels in the months to come. Both Jean Claude Trichet, president of the ECB and Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez, governor of the Bank of Spain, have said that current base rates are at the “appropriate level”.

The volume of new residential mortgages signed in September was 62,411, down 4.2 % compared to the same month last year. In value terms new residential mortgages were down 16 % to 7.3 billion euros.
The good news is the decline in new mortgage lending has been bottoming out in the last few months. It fell 31 % in June, 19 % in July, 7 % in August, and 4 % in September. If the trend continues new mortgage lending will soon be growing again year-on-year in volume terms. That will give some support to the housing market.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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As can be seen from the chart, price falls stabilised at around 10% in the first half of the year, and started shrinking from July onwards. On present trends prices will be rising again within a few months. Even the price of property on the coast is falling at a slower rate, narrowing to -8.9% in November, just above what it was a year ago (-8.5%). Coastal property prices have been hit the hardest thanks to the surplus of holiday homes for which there is little market in a recession.

The graph and table data represent the year-on-year evolution of Spanish property values. For example, if the value for August 2009 would be -3.9, then this means that average property prices in August 2009 are 3.9% lower than they were a year earlier, in August 2008.

The graph and table on this page contain up to date information for the past 13 months. For more information, please look at earlier monthly reports, or the historical overview since January 2001.

The graph and table data are based on actual property valuations, as established by one of Spain’s larget independent property valuation companies, Tinsa S.A. They are not based on asking prices or registered selling prices, nor on the statistics as provided by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, and are therefore considered to be the most acurate and reliable source for this kind of information.

Related posts:

1. Spanish House Price Index – December 2009
2. Spanish House Price Index – September 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – October 2009

During the economic crisis, Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Spain’s central bank governor since 2006, has rarely given interviews. Talking to the Financial Times in the library of the bank’s plush Madrid headquarters, he strikes a distinctly cautious tone, but his messages are not so different from those of his colleagues in Frankfurt.

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank last year, the ECB cut its main interest rate farther and faster than ever before, to a record low of 1 per cent. He hints this monetary policy stance will remain for some time. “It is clear that any increase in [interest] rates is off the screen. The markets do not expect any change before the second half of next year,” he says.

He agrees, however, that with financial markets normalising, the ECB’s governing council should plan to remove emergency support, such as offers of unlimited liquidity for up to one year. “My reasoning is that those measures were exceptional because the markets did not work well. When the markets are working well, we should take them away because otherwise the markets will never work perfectly, ever. Support should be exceptional.”

Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB’s president, indicated this month that the “exit strategy” would start in December, with the ending of one-year liquidity offers.

But is Spain ready for the start of such an ECB strategy, given its weak growth prospects? “Well, it’s ready for recovery,” Mr Fernández Ordóñez replies, “because recovery in Europe is the best news for Spain.” Some 70 per cent of Spain’s exports go to the eurozone, he points out. His biggest concern is that Spain pushes harder to bring public finances under control and increase labour market flexibility.

From one perspective, eurozone membership acts as a straitjacket in a downturn because devaluation is not an option. Worse, the euro is strengthening. Mr Fernández Ordóñez does not see things that way, however. “Of course you are right that we cannot devalue, and what does it mean? This means that we have to do more structural reforms so that you have the advantages [similar to those] of devaluing.”

As such, he is happy to see Spanish consumer prices falling faster than elsewhere. “Deflation in the euro area would be a disaster. But if you don’t have deflation in the euro area and we have a negative inflation differential in Spain compared with the rest of the eurozone, that would be the best thing. Reducing prices and regaining competitiveness is what we have to do.”

Story from FT.com

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Do you think there are any good investment opportunities in Spanish real estate today?
I think so but they are risky. In three years we’ll probably be kicking ourselves for not advising investors to invest now. There aren’t many opportunities in commercial real estate because there isn’t much product and rents haven’t yet adjusted. In residential, on the other hand, the correction has been very strong and fast. The ideal profile now is an opportunistic investor buying properties off banks by taking on the existing debt, a type of real estate venture capital.

So you think there are opportunities in a residential sector because the adjustment has already taken place?
There are hundreds of thousands of possible transactions, but not many genuine opportunities. What there is not is any financing, so anyone who wants to take advantage of this market has to take the debt with the asset, but there are still very few people prepared to do that today.

Has the price of housing and land touched bottom?
House prices touched bottom some time ago, they have already fallen all they had to fall. And the price of land has fallen faster than house prices although it could even fall a bit more. We have been saying at the top of our lungs that the price statistics published by the government are worthless, and damaging to the sector because they give international analysts the impression we are a country of idiots. In the US and the UK prices have fallen around 20% from the peak whilst here we have only fallen by 8%. We work with close to 28 property companies that have been restructured, and you see that valuations are down 30% in 2 years, and then banks buy those assets with discounts of 10-15% off valuations.

Do you think there is any residential property that will never sell?
What there is is a stock of land that will never be sold, at least not in 10 years. There are areas of Spain where the town plans look like they were designed for an invasion of extraterrestrials, parts of Almeria, Murcia and Alicante. There is an overdose of land that will lie in the warehouses of banks for many years. On the other hand, the stock of finished property will be absorbed sooner.

Is there any real demand for housing at the moment?
Yes, quite a few homes are being sold. We would have to place it at more than 200,000 homes a year. What is not selling is off-plan, as there you take the risk of the developer or builder going bankrupt. It’s a good time to buy newly built homes with Euribor at 1.24%. They won’t be any cheaper next year. And when prices start to rise they will do so at a rate of 10% per year.

How does one get the Spanish property sector to recover?
The residential sector is already recovering, just not the developers, who won’t see the light at the end of the tunnel for three years; it is very bleak for them. Clients of ours tell us they have sold a lot this summer, and some banks tell us that they have had more mortgage requests this summer than in all 2009. Furthermore, we believe that developers have dropped their prices to the minimum. There is mortgage financing available, not much, but there wasn’t any at all in 2008, and now there is. Mortgage costs are low, and it appears that the future is not going to get any worse. The recovery is underway, although this won’t show up in the official statistics until the first half of 2010. As soon as there is a general perception that things are getting better, house prices will stop falling and start rising.

Story from Idealista News

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Residential Spanish property prices fell by 7.4% over 12 months to the end of October. Nationally, prices are not falling as fast as they were, which may mean the market has touched bottom. It certainly looks that way from the graph above.

This seems especially true for inland property. Prices are down 5.8% compared to a year ago, which is a better performance than we see in some Northern European markets. It’s certainly the smalles price drop in a year, and the lowest fall of all the regions analysed. Of course it’s still early days, but inland property prices may actually start to rise slightly again in the first quarter of 2010.

The graph and table data represent the year-on-year evolution of Spanish property values. For example, if the value for August 2009 would be -3.9, then this means that average property prices in August 2009 are 3.9% lower than they were a year earlier, in August 2008.

The graph and table on this page contain up to date information for the past 13 months. For more information, please look at earlier monthly reports, or the historical overview since January 2001.

The graph and table data are based on actual property valuations, as established by one of Spain’s larget independent property valuation companies, Tinsa S.A. They are not based on asking prices or registered selling prices, nor on the statistics as provided by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, and are therefore considered to be the most acurate and reliable source for this kind of information.

Related posts:

1. Spanish House Price Index – September 2009
2. Spanish House Price Index – November 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – February 2010

There is some basis for the developer’s optimism in the latest sales figures from the National Institute of Statistics. Sales of newly built properties increased by 7.6% from August to September, though on an annualised basis sales were down 20%.

“It’s been comforting to see sales rise for the 5th consecutive month, something that means we can say that the sector is recovering since it touched bottom in April,” Pérez told the Spanish press.

Sales are bouncing back thanks to lower prices and more selective mortgage lending by banks, argue the developers.

The recovery in sales will continue in the months ahead, says Pérez, in part because developers will make “every effort possible” to make prices more attractive.

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1. Spanish Property Market Is Recovering
2. Property Market Collapse Looses Momentum
3. Three Years to Absorb Flood of Spanish Homes

Monthly repayments on a typical annually-resetting mortgage (150,000 euros, 25 years) will drop by around 300 euros a month, or 4,000 euros a year, to 640 euros/month. Significantly lower monthly mortgage repayments have given many borrowers financial breathing space they did not have when Euribor stood at 5.26% in October last year. Estate agents report this is taking some pressure of the property market, by reducing the number of forced sellers. Many more borrowers can now afford to take their homes of the market in the hope of selling when the market recovers.

The average value of new residential mortgages signed in August fell 19% to 11,753 euros compared to the same time last year. The number of new mortgages signed by 6.6% to 52,482. Fewer, cheaper mortgages put downward pressure on property prices. The average interest rate on new mortgages in August was 4.3%. Interest rates from banks (4.15%) were better than savings banks or cajas (4.46%).

Many analysts expect Euribor to continue falling until the early part of 2010, further reducing the cost of money to Spanish mortgage borrowers.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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3. Euribor to Record Low in August

The government of Andalucia, or Junta, announced yesterday a subsidy of 1 billion Euros to help liquidate the region’s property glut estimated at around 70,000 newly-built homes.

Like the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ programme used to subsidise car sales, public money will now be showered on house-hunters in Andalucia. But second home buyers can stay in their seats as the scheme only applies to local residents buying main homes. Even so, it could benefit foreigners living in Andalucia, and help lift the market out of its slump, which might lift prices for all types of property.

How it works
The way it works is developers participating in the scheme have to offer their property for sale at mortgage cost, wiping out their margins and giving a discount of 20%. Participating banks, for their part, will loan 100% interest only for the first 3 years. Starting in the fourth year the Junta will offer loans to subsidise mortgage payments for up to 5 years and a maximum of 15,000 Euros. As a result, buyers will save as much as 40% over 8 years, according to calculations by the Junta.

More conditions: The offer stands until the end of 2010, the properties must be newly- built, and the mortgage no greater than 245,000 Euros, the price limit for social housing. Mortgages must be 100% LTV, up to 30 years, charging an interest rate of Euribor +1%

Read the fine print, though, and the Junta isn’t being so generous. In year 9 mortgage lenders have to reimburse the subsidy to the Junta and add it onto the outstanding mortgage, so the borrower pays in the end. Nevertheless, thanks to inflation, buyers will probably have to pay back less, in real terms, than they borrow. Many people expect inflation to take off in the next few years.

Criticisms
You could argue that it is morally questionable for the government to be spending 1 billion Euros subsidising home buyers when there are so many other more needy causes. And isn’t this is just a wheeze to get buyers to pay inflated prices for homes today whilst transferring the burden of payment onto tax payers in the future? Wouldn’t it be cheaper, and cause less economic distortion, just to drop prices today to a level that people can afford without crucifying themselves on a 30 year mortgage subsidised by the government?

Story by: Mark Stucklin

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2. Spanish property market receives positive outlook for 2009
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Life in sun-soaked Spain, where people retire earlier and live longer, was judged to be the best by researchers at uSwitch.com in the latest European Quality of Life index.

Earning 35,730 pounds ($56,410) a year on average, Brits are 10,000 pounds ($15,790) richer than their European neighbors, but that doesn’t translate into an easier life and they are getting a “raw deal” researchers concluded.

Shoppers in Britain pay higher prices for fuel, food, alcohol and cigarettes and receive poorer healthcare and education, the survey found.

“There is more to good living than money and this report shows why so many Brits are giving up on the UK and heading to France and Spain,” said Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com.

“We have lost all sense of balance between wealth and well-being,” she said.

British workers toil three years longer and die two years younger than their French counterparts.

The Spanish enjoy 2,665 hours of sunshine a year, compared with just 1,397 in Ireland and they pay five percent less taxes than their light-deprived Irish cousins.

The 10 major countries surveyed were ranked in the following order from best to worst quality of life: France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Ireland and Britain.

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Residential Spanish property prices fell by 8.3% over 12 months to the end of September. Nationally, prices are not falling as fast as they were, which may mean the market has touched bottom. It certainly looks that way from the graph above.

Then again, this might just be a temporary pause before prices start accelerating downwards again. After all, that’s what has happened to property prices on the coast. After stabilising in July and August they lurched lower again in September, falling 11.5% over 12 months, the highest fall of all the regions analysed.

The graph and table data represent the year-on-year evolution of Spanish property values. For example, if the value for August 2009 would be -3.9, then this means that average property prices in August 2009 are 3.9% lower than they were a year earlier, in August 2008.

The graph and table on this page contain up to date information for the past 13 months. For more information, please look at earlier monthly reports, or the historical overview since January 2001.

The graph and table data are based on actual property valuations, as established by one of Spain’s larget independent property valuation companies, Tinsa S.A. They are not based on asking prices or registered selling prices, nor on the statistics as provided by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, and are therefore considered to be the most acurate and reliable source for this kind of information.

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2. Spanish House Price Index – October 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – December 2009

Monthly repayments on the average annually-resetting mortgage (150,000 Euros, 30 years, Euribor +0.85%) will drop by around 435 Euros a month, or 4,150 Euros a year, to 555 Euros/month. However, many borrowers will not benefit thanks to clauses in their contracts that set a floor for interest rates.

There were 58,995 new residential mortgages signed in July, 19% less than a year ago, according to figures from the INE. In the first 7 months of the year new mortgages were down 30% compared to the same period last year.

The fall in new residential mortgages appears to be bottoming out (year-to-date in May -35%, -31% in June, and -30% in July). In value terms, new mortgage lending fell 34% to 6.7 billion Euros in July, or 41% in the first 7 months of the year.

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Monthly homes sales have in fact been creeping up since April, when they hit a record low of 26,215 in the aftermath of the stock market collapse. As the volume of sales has climbed, year on year sales declines have improved too. On a cumulative basis, however, sales in the year to July are down 33% to 243,000.

For the first time this year, the number of newly built and previously occupied homes sold was almost equal, thanks to a significant improvement in resales, and a slight fall in the number of new homes sold. Historically, and under normal market conditions, resales are bigger than new homes, but since July 2008, and thanks to Spain’s property market crash, new build sales have been higher.

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“Recent indicators show a trend toward stabilization in the housing market,” Corredor said.

Spain’s once-buoyant housing market collapsed last year as the global financial crisis worsened a correction that was already underway after years of overbuilding and spiraling house prices.

Data Tuesday from Spain’s national statistics institute showed the number of houses sold in Spain rose 4.7% in July, their third consecutive month-on-month gain, though they were down 20% from July last year.

Falling housing prices and interest rates are helping to improve the affordability of housing, Corredor added, saying this should stimulate demand.

The government has offered incentives to convert unsold homes into rental properties or to sell them to qualified buyers in social-housing programs. It has also said it will limit current tax incentives on home purchases from 2011 in an attempt to bring forward decisions to buy.

In a note to investors Wednesday, Citigroup economist Giada Giani said the rise in July home sales points to an improvement in Spanish property demand, but noted that housing construction indicators continue to “decline sharply, depressed by the huge amount of unsold inventories.”

Story from Nasdaq

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France takes first place, accounting for 31% of enquiries received by the company so far this year, but Spain follows on with 22%. A surprising result in view of recent negative press. Enquiries have increased considerably with the countries accounting for 53% of all 2009 enquiries so far, compared with 29% in the same period last year.

Conti’s operations director Clare Nessling says: “British buyers are sticking to the more traditional overseas locations, especially those with history of providing good rental returns. The smart investor is no longer simply looking to where the best bargains for a swift return can be found, but to where security lies for a longer term investment.”

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‘Over the years, the property market in Spain has proved to be extremely cyclical, much more so than it is in the UK. This recent market activity suggests that the wheel is turning again, at least for the better quality, more individual, properties in new and progressive upwardly mobile locations,’ said sales and marketing manager, Simon Coaker.

‘Prices have been at their lowest for six years but are bound to start rising again if sales of such properties continue at this level. No matter how great the oversupply of poor quality, mass built apartments, in secondary locations around the old tourism centres, the actual supply of good quality individual properties in relatively new, less developed, locations which are the future of residential tourism in Spain remain in short supply,’ he added.

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Na het ‘witte’ kustplaatsje Nerja en het stadje Baeza, draaien we voorbij duizenden olijfbomen om een rots heen en ontvouwt er zich een prachtig panorama. Met uitzicht op de op twee na hoogste berg van Spanje, La Sagra (2350 m), kleurt de langzaam ondergaande zon het landschap van lichtroze tot grijswit en van groen tot okergeel. Via een oprit waar menig vorst zijn vingers bij aflikt, rijden we de vallei in en naderen het lieflijk ogende dorpje Huéscar met in het midden één enkele kerktoren.

Lees verder in de Reiskrant van de Telegraaf.

Of bekijk onze koophuizen in de buurt van Huéscar.

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Om de restanten van het zogeheten Al Andalus te zien, moet je naar de stad Granada. Hier vind je alles over de Iberische geschiedenis in de tijd dat de Moren heersers waren.
Het begint allemaal in de ochtend op de markt van Plaza Larga in het historische Islamitische kwartier Albayzin.

Vanaf hier heb je talloze stijle trappen omhoog, de wijk in. Probeer aan het einde van de stenen trede de zogeheten Mirador de San Cristóbal te vinden. De beloning is een panorama uitzicht…

Lees verder in de Reiskrant van de Telegraaf.

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After the fall in August, Euribor has now fallen for eleven consecutive months, setting a new record low in each of the last 6 months. Euribor has gone from record high to record low in the space of a year. However, mortgage experts do not expect Euribor to drop much further from here, certainly not below 1 percent.

Thanks to the latest drop in Euribor, the average borrower can expect to save around 316 Euros per month, or more than 3,800 Euros per year, on mortgages that reset around now. But consumer groups have complained that many banks are not passing on falling rates to customers, using the opportunity to raise the margins they charge borrowers.

Nevertheless, Spanish consumer group CECU has urged borrowers to use the fall in base rates to try and remortgage, noting that the number of people doing so is up nearly 65 percent compared to last year. CECU has also called on borrowers to report banks for including illegal clauses in mortgage contracts.

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On a year on year basis, however, new mortgages signed in June were still 10.8% below the same month last year, showing that the market still has some way to go before it recovers to former levels.

These figures, from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics, also reveal that accumulated new mortgage signings were down 31% in the first 6 months of the year compared to the same period last year.

By value, new mortgages in June fell 6% year on year, but rose 4% month on month.

The average value fell 10% year on year to 142,700 Euros, but was up 5% on the previous month. In some regions, especially those where property prices are highest, the fall was more drastic. Average mortgage values fell 19% in Madrid, and 25% in Barcelona.

Average mortgage values are also down heavily in popular holiday home destinations like Malaga (Costa del Sol), down 24.5%, and The Balearics, down 30%.

The average interest rate was 4.47%, 13.8% lower than a year ago and 2.9% lower than the previous month. This figure shows that banks are passing on only a fraction of the fall in base rates to customers. Base rates are down 70% compared to June last year.

The average monthly mortgage payment has fallen from 845 Euros in June 2008, to 702 Euros today.

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The new town-plan will replace the existing plan, approved in 1986, that was systematically abused over 15 years by a succession of corrupt mayors, resulting in 18,000 illegal properties in Marbella.

The new plan legalises 16,500 properties in return for compensating the town hall with land and payments to restore public spaces that were lost to private developments. Under the latest draft developers are the only ones on the hook, after Ángeles Muñoz, Marbella’s Mayor, fought to ensure that innocent third party buyers will not be liable for any compensation payments.

Despite macho talk and brinkmanship from the Mayor last week, the new plan will not save the most contentious illegal properties from demolition. Last week Ángeles Muñoz said she would extend the planning amnesty to 500 illegal but occupied properties, against the wishes of the government in Seville. But in the end the new plan she sent to the town council for approval did not offer a way out for the unfortunate owners of properties in the Banana Beach and Rio Real developments. In theory these properties will have to be demolished, along with 1,000 other properties that were built but never sold, as the new plan does not provide for any other solution.

The regional government in Seville is expected to nod through the new plan, which will them come into force. Marbella’s first town plan since 1986 can only be good news for the local property market.

Story by Mark Stucklin

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The Bank of Spain yesterday confirmed that it had advised all banks that they would no longer have to set aside the full value of high-risk mortgage loans – those for more than 80 per cent of a property’s value – after two years of arrears.

Instead, they would only have to provision for the difference between the value of the loan and that of 70 per cent of the mortgaged property. In the case of a mortgage for the total cost of a new home, for example, banks would provision for 30 per cent of the property’s value. But the central bank also warned banks to ‘update’ their Spanish property valuations.

Although the regulator has long recognised the ‘residual value’ of mortgaged properties at 70 per cent, its schedule of provisioning for riskier loans in effect forced lenders to assume that a 100 per cent mortgage was irrecoverable after two years of nonpayment, against six years for most other credits.

The assumption was typical of a regulator whose tough stance on off-balance sheet investment vehicles saved Spanish lenders from the worst effects of the US subprime crisis. Its insistence on precautionary bad loan provisions has also allowed them to withstand the collapse of the domestic housing market about two years ago.

But the non-performing loan rate for the financial system has almost quadrupled in the past year, to 4.27 per cent of total assets, and is much higher at some of the caja, or weaker savings and loans banks.

Recent estimates put the value of property repossessed or swapped for debt by Spanish banks at about €16bn ($22bn, £14bn).

In April, the Bank of Spain took over a caja based in the Castilla La Mancha region. Another two recently announced they were in merger talks. The government, meanwhile, is setting up a bank restructuring fund which it says will provide up to €90bn for rescue operations. Lenders have welcomed the new provisioning criteria.

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‘We don’t have a precise estimate, but we believe that the fall (in gross domestic product) will be substantially less than in the first quarter,’ Jose Manuel Campa said in an interview with the financial daily Cinco Dias.

‘Until the end of the year we will continue to have negative growth rates, but increasingly smaller ones.’

Spain’s economy shrank 1.9 percent in the first quarter from a quarter earlier, its sharpest contraction in half a century – most acutely felt in the Spanish property market. Savings bank foundation FUNCAS said on Monday the worst may be over.

‘Available data point to a less abrupt contraction in the second quarter than the previous two quarters,’ Funcas said. Talk of economic recovery may be premature, the foundation said.

‘The worst may be over, but that doesn’t mean the economy will recover soon, just that the recession will be less intense,’ Funcas said.

The Spanish economy would shrink by 3.6 percent in 2009 and 0.6 percent in 2010, according to consensus figures published by the foundation on Monday.

The Spanish government has launched one of the world’s largest economic stimulus packages in relative terms which has inflated a ballooning public deficit likely to rise above 10 percent of GDP this year from 3.8 percent in 2008.

Campa reiterated the government’s target to cut the deficit to below 3 percent in 2012 in line with European Union recommendations.

‘It is our commitment to the European Union and we meet our commitments,’ he said. ‘Obviously, it is not easy, but it is feasible.’

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Of all respondents, 28% said that they are unaffected by the current economic situation, 22% who had delayed their plans because of the economic climate are now back in the market and hope to find a bargain, while 10% said that they are checking out the market but will not proceed just yet.

Ann Wright, International Business Development Manager for primelocation.com, says ‘This is very clear indication that people have not let go of their dreams of owning a property abroad. Indeed, it is encouraging that people are coming back to the market, possibly because of recent press reports of falling property prices across Europe.’

The primelocation.com 2009 International Survey also monitored the countries the portal’s visitors are most interested in buying in. France took top spot with 25%, Spain came second (16%) and was followed by Italy and Portugal which tied in fourth place with 11% each. The United States, Cyprus, Greece, Switzerland, Turkey, Canada and the UAE took the rest of the top 10 spots.

‘It is interesting to note that over a quarter of all respondents currently own/rent a property in France and interest in the country, which has always been the first choice amongst Brits, has remained fairly stable at 25% since 2008. Spanish property and Portuguese properties have increased in popularity since 2008 as people respond to the reports of falling property prices.’

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ECB officials meeting in Luxembourg will leave the benchmark rate at a record low of 1 percent, according to all but two of 60 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The central bank, led by President Jean-Claude Trichet, may keep the rate there until the fourth quarter of 2010, a separate survey shows.

The ECB last week lent banks a record 442 billion euros ($621 billion) for 12 months at its key rate in the hope they will pass on cheaper credit to companies and households. It will also start buying 60 billion euros of covered bonds this month to encourage lending. Trichet may today unveil further details of the plan, which was a compromise after policy makers failed to agree on a package twice that size.

“The ECB is pretty much done with cutting rates,” said Guillaume Menuet, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in London. “However, they are very concerned about credit developments. If there is no improvement by October, the debate about expanding the asset purchases will resurface.”

The ECB, which holds Governing Council meetings twice a year away from its Frankfurt headquarters, announces its rate decision at 1:45 p.m. and Trichet holds a press conference 45 minutes later.

The central bank for the 16-member euro region has been reticent to follow the examples of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan, which have lowered their main rates to close to zero and are buying government and corporate bonds to reflate their economies.

The ECB, whose key rate is still the highest among the Group of Seven nations, has focused instead on getting credit flowing through the banking system again, arguing that two thirds of its economy is financed by banks.

Even so, loans to households and companies in the euro area grew at the slowest pace on record in May as the recession crimped demand for debt and prompted banks to tighten credit standards.

While the ECB’s measures have stabilized the banking sector, “they have not, at this stage, succeeded in pushing credit into the real economy,” said Jacques Cailloux, chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. That could be achieved by buying corporate bonds, he said.

The ECB initially considered a package of asset purchases worth 125 billion euros that included corporate bonds and commercial paper, according to people briefed on the talks. Germany’s Axel Weber opposed buying assets of any sort. Other ECB officials, such as Athanasios Orphanides from Cyprus, have said more may need to be done to temper the risk of deflation.

Consumer prices fell 0.1 percent in June from a year earlier. That’s the lowest inflation rate Europe has seen since 1953, according to Royal Bank of Scotland. The ECB predicts the euro-region economy will contract about 4.6 percent this year.

“The primary goal should be to restore economic growth as fast as possible,” ECB council member Ewald Nowotny said at a conference on June 16. “It is necessary to use all possible means to secure a recovery,” he said in a June 19 interview, adding he expects interest rates to stay on hold into 2010.

Some policy makers are more worried that the stimulus being provided by central banks and governments will sow the seeds of future inflation. Deflation risks “are extremely limited,” ECB Executive Board member Juergen Stark said June 25. The bank will “swiftly” withdraw additional liquidity when the economy improves, he said.

There are signs that the worst of the recession may be over. The contraction in Europe’s services and manufacturing industries is slowing and confidence in the economic outlook rose to a seven-month high in June.

“The economy certainly won’t prompt any more ECB action for now,” said Aurelio Maccario, chief euro-area economist at Unicredit Group in Milan, who expects the ECB to keep rates on hold until the end of 2010. “However, if credit flows don’t start improving, Trichet will have to put his thinking cap on again in a few months.”

Story from Bloomberg

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On a daily basis Euribor finished the month at 1.504%, another all time low, suggesting that Euribor’s downward trend has not yet run out of steam.

After the latest fall, Euribor is now 70% below where it was in June 2008. That means savings of around 3,400 euros per year for the average borrower with a mortgage resetting now.

A year ago the average mortgage value was 141,939 euros, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE). With Euribor then at 5.361%, 3.75 points higher than today, monthly repayments on the average 25-year mortgage were around 860 euros. Today the repayments should have fallen to around 575 euros, a saving of 284 euros a month, or 3,400 euros a year.

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The survey is the first attempt by any public or private body to pin down the size of the stock of unsold Spanish property -estimated at over 1 million homes by some economists- using a methodology similar to the respected Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) study of the UK market.

“The survey looks good to me, very representative and well designed,” said Jose Carlos Diez, an economist with Intermoney in Madrid. However, he added the figure was still represented a serious challenge despite being almost half of many estimates.

“You should not lose perspective, the figure is less than expected, but 600,000 homes is still a lot of homes.” At the current rate of sale, the stock will take around three years to be run down while Spain’s housing market -the former motor of economic growth- suffers a hangover after a 10 year boom. In that time prices tripled and huge tracts of the coast in were disfigured by rows of uniform apartment blocs.

In 2007 alone Spain built 690,000 new homes, even though underlying demand is normally less than half that. Now hundreds of builders are going bust every quarter amid a 34 percent dive in sales in the year to date and their assets clog up banks’ asset sheets.

The survey published on Friday also notes that Spain had 627,000 homes in the process of construction at the end of 2008 — 70 percent of them almost finished and 39 percent already sold.

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For the past four months, the House Price Index has been steady, 10% down Y-O-Y. Compared to the dramatic decline measured between the middle of 2006 and the start of 2009 -a 28% decline from peak to trough-, that’s quite a significant change in trend.

Even if the House Price Index for the rest of the year shows the Spanish property market bumping along the bottom at the current levels, many people will be relieved to have actually found the bottom – rather than worrying about how much worse things can get.

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According to the National Institute of Statistics, the average Spanish mortgage is 119,000 Euros, Euribor +.075%, with a 26 year term. Monthly repayments on mortgages resetting to May’s Euribor will fall by 223 Euros to 512 Euros per month, a major relief for many of Spain’s hard pressed borrowers.

Euribor has started June with further falls.

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Just focusing on countries which have experienced a year-on-year decline in house values, Spain is far from the worse affected.

At the bottom of the chart are Dubai and Latvia, both with whopping 30+ percent annual decreases in house prices.

Faring worse than Spain are Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Poland, Hong Kong, Estonia, UK, United States, Singapore, Dubai and Latvia with annual decreases between 9% and 36%.

Spain’s modest loss of almost 7% is nothing to shout about – except that, looking at some of its neighbours – it could be a lot worse.

Even though the Knight Frank report sees little reason to be cheerful, countries such as Israel and the Czech Republic actually managed a 10% increase in house prices comparing Q1 2009 with Q1 2008.

The bad news for Brits wanting to buy property in Spain is that over the last 12 months, UK house prices have slumped 10% more in the UK than in Spain. To make matters worse, Sterling is now worth 16% less in Euros than it was at the start of 2008.

A year ago, selling a UK home for £200,000 to buy a property in Spain would have yielded approximately €270,000 of buying power in Spain. Today, that same home would sell for 16% less – £168,000 – and translate to just €190,000.

However, due to the fact that Spanish property also reduced by 6% in value over the same period, that €190,000 would have a purchasing power of €201,000 when compared to 2008. Even so, that represents a drop in real terms of €70,000 or approximately 26% in just 12 months.

Data from Knight Frank

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* Follows improvement in March mortgage lending

Spanish house sales fell at the slowest pace in 11 months during March, the National Statistics Institute reported on Tuesday, marking the latest data to suggest Spain’s severe recession may be easing.

Home sales fell 24.3 percent to 34,895 in March in what was the 13th straight month of decline, but well below rates of 37.5 percent in February and 38.6 percent in January, INE reported.

The March result was the slowest rate of decline since April 2008 and followed Bank of Spain data showing banks lent 7 billion euros in March for mortgages, the most since July 2008.

Economists expected the sales trend to continue as real estate firms and banks repossess homes due to soaring debt defaults and put them on the market at ever lower prices.

“It’s not that things are improving, there’s just less deterioration,” said economist Carlos Maravall at the AFI consultancy. “We’ve had a very sharp fall in terms of house sale numbers and what remains to be seen is a price fall.”

March housing results were flattered by the statistical impact of a sharp, 39 percent fall in March 2008 sales and the fact Easter fell in March last year.

But they mirrored data showing a slowdown in the rate of decline in April service and manufacturing sector activity, as measured by the Markit Economics Purchasing Managers’ Index.

Spain’s Socialist government last week said it saw green shoots of economic recovery after Spanish consumer confidence hit a year high in April as new jobless claims rose at their slowest pace in nine months.

The International Monetary Fund expects Spanish house prices to fall 30 percent from peak to trough and estimates Spain is around half way through that process.

Story from: Reuters

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The measure is supposed to stimulate the housing market by giving buyers a reason to bring forward their purchase, rather than wait and potentially lose their right to mortgage relief.

If it were to succeed, this would help mop up Spain’s housing glut of 1 million new homes, and eliminate a fiscal incentive to buy rather than rent, something that organisations like the IMF and OECD have been calling for for some time.

Zapatero announced the measure during the annual state of the nation debate in Parliament this week as a way to deflect attention from Spain’s economic problems. In typical Zapatero style it was presented as a ‘progressive’ measure that only hits ‘high earners’.

In reality, however, the plan hits the middle class, and given property prices and incomes in Spain, will affect almost anyone with enough money to buy a home. Mortgage relief will be reduced after 17,000, and eliminated after 24,000 Euros income per annum.

The opposition leader Mariano Rajoy called it an “attack on the interests of the middle classes” and said his party would retain and increase mortgage relief to stimulate the market.

Developers have criticised the plan, calling it a negative stimulus. Though it may help them shift some stock in the short run, it will harm them in the long run, reducing the incentive for people to buy homes from developers.

Some experts are claiming that banks will be the biggest, and possibly only beneficiaries of this measure. “The banks are the ones with the key to financing and with the cheapest property,” Eduardo Molet, President of the Network of Property Experts, told the Spanish press. “But thinking that the banks will sell their stock rapidly is a mistake, as their product isn’t exactly the best,” Molet points out.

Mortgage relief in Spain is only available to residents with mortgages on their primary residence. As such, Zapatero’s plan will have little impact on the second home market on the coast. Nevertheless, it could affect Britons and other foreigners relocating to Spain and buying a main home with a mortgage, if they have incomes above 17,000 Euros per annum.

Eliminating mortgage relief does little to address the real problem of the Spanish property market, namely that too much inappropriate, unattractive, and overpriced property has been built, especially on the coast.

Story by: Mark Stucklin

Related posts:

1. Spain moves to ease impact of crisis
2. Latest Euribor and Spanish Mortgage News
3. New Mortgage Lending Down 34% in 2009

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1. Spanish House Price Index – May 2009
2. Spanish House Price Index – July 2009
3. Spanish House Price Index – June 2009

From 6 April, 2010, furnished holiday lets in the UK will no longer be treated as business assets, against which owners can offset losses against their other income and roll over capital gains tax to reduce their tax bill. The break was originally introduced in the 1980s as a way of encouraging British tourism.

The Government withdrew the concession after the European Union ruled that it breached EU law by discriminating against non UK owners of second homes in other European countries.

Although the most published elements of the recent Budget concentrated on tax increases, much less published is a new opportunity for owners of holiday lets in Spain, who have been given the chance to apply retrospectively for tax repayments going back up to a full five tax years. Property owners who thinks they may be eligible should act quickly, as the tax breaks will cease in April 2010.

This change in taxation is applicable where either of two circumstances has arisen:

1. Where owners have incurred losses from the letting of the property since 6 April 2003
2. Where a property used for holiday lets has been sold at a profit since 6 April 2003

Example 1

Mr Smith owns a Spanish villa that, apart from a couple of weeks’ private use, is let commercially throughout the year. Whilst Mr Smith tries to let the property all year round, the seasonal nature of the business means that, year on year, a loss of around £5,000 is incurred. Mr Smith may now be able to make a claim to offset this loss against UK income tax over the last five years. As a higher rate taxpayer, this would generate a tax repayment of around £10,000 (5 years x £5,000 x 40%).

Example 2

Mrs Jones acquired a holiday property in Portugal in 2001 for the equivalent of £100,000. The property was let out for five years, on a holiday-let basis, and sold in 2006 for £200,000. She paid capital gains tax in the UK of £30,000 on the sale, after all available tax reliefs. It may now be possible to go back and amend the calculation to include further reliefs, which would reduce the taxable gain to around £2,000. This would save Mrs Jones £28,000.

More than two million Britons currently own a property abroad, and a number may recently have become eligible for one of these tax breaks. Many owners who previously kept their homes for private use have been renting them out to holiday makers over the last couple of years, to generate an extra source of income during the economic downturn.

This is a one-off opportunity in the 2009/10 tax year to secure a unique tax rebate. In 2010/11 the set-off or carry back allowances which create the rebate will no longer apply. To be eligible for the allowance, properties must have been let for ten weeks a year and available to let for 140 days.

Target Chartered Accountants are offering a free tax consultation with a fee only chargeable if a successful tax refund or reduction is achieved.

Landlords who think they may be eligible and would like to take advantage of the free tax review should contact Target Accountants

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After the latest drop in Euribor, borrowers with annually resetting mortgages should see their annual mortgage repayments fall by between 3,000 and 5,800 Euros, in theory at least.

In reality, however, some borrowers complain that their payments haven’t fallen at all, and in some cases, have actually risen. This may be due to banks using a derivative of Euribor, such as a moving average, that lags the fall, or due to other malicious conditions buried in the small print (and so beloved by mortgage lenders), such as interests rate ‘floors’ below which mortgage rates cannot fall.

Euribor is derived from the European Central Bank (ECB) base rate, which is currently at 1.25%. The markets are expecting another interest rate cut in May, so that is already baked into the current Euribor rate. Experts expect Euribor to keep falling in the coming months to around 1.25% at the end of the year.

Story by: Mark Stucklin

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Everywhere you go in Madrid, For Sale signs on half-built apartment blocks dominate the Spanish capital. No surprise: The global recession has hit the country’s once-booming real estate market harder than most. Property prices from Barcelona to the Balearic Islands fell 6.5% in the first quarter of 2009 alone. They are expected to drop 35% or more from their 2007 peak by the end of this year.

The economic downturn—in Spain and dozens of other countries—has left many homeowners struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments. But for well-funded property buyers, the recession is opening up a bonanza of cut-price deals. When times were good, cheap credit fueled almost insatiable demand for second homes and investment properties. Now, financing is harder to come by, and developers are slashing prices to offload stock built for a dwindling number of buyers.

The power shift in property sales is gradually enticing investors back into the market. Double-digit price declines since 2007 and the renewed strength of the dollar against foreign currencies make buying overseas more affordable for Americans.

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3. Spanish property market receives positive outlook for 2009

The oversupply of newly built property in Spain is so severe that even if no more new homes were constructed, it would still take two years to clear the current flood of residential units. However, Spain is on course to start around 200,000 new homes this year.

The same official also claimed that a fall in Spanish birth rates was partly to blame for the recent drop in Spanish property sales, despite the huge immigration of recent years.

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3. Spanish Property Glut Shrinks

An example: You pay €210,000 for a Spanish property in 2003 and it increases in nominal value to €395,000 in 2007. Most vendors wanting to sell that property today would be tempted to advertise it at around €320,000 – but that won’t work. Most people won’t bite at that price. Instead, advertise it at €270,000 and you’ll have a queue forming outside your front door. Hopefully, you’ll find more than one who is serious – and you can stick resolutely to your asking price.

Clearly, not every Spanish property owner is able to take this kind of ‘hit’ when selling – but many can. The reality of the situation today is that property prices in Spain won’t recover for a good few years – and it will take even longer for the highs of 2007 to be reached again – if at all. Vendors can either sell now at a realistic price or wait a long, long time for their ‘ideal’ price to be realistic again.

There is no shortage of people ready, willing and able to complete on a Spanish property – they simply need to be convinced it represents good value. Despite the lack of reliable official data about the Spanish property market, despite the gloom and doom of most news stories in circulation, vendors have all the tools they need to be able to price their Spanish property to sell – and sell quickly.

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1. Spanish Property Market Is Recovering
2. Spanish Property Prices Continue to Fall
3. House Prices in Spain Seem to Have Bottomed Out

House Price Index March 2009

Credit Suisse analysts said supply and demand were out of kilter, with one in six people out of work and 1.5 to 2 million houses sitting unsold. The average Spanish home costs 7.2-times the average household’s annual income, against 4.6-times in Britain and 3-times in the United States, the bank said.

‘Unemployment is fast increasing and that is a leading indicator of future delinquencies in the banking sector and potential declines in house prices,’ the Swiss bank said in a note after the figures were published.

Most industry experts say government data underplays price declines in the Spanish property market, which saw a 39 percent fall in the volume of sales in January, year on year.

However, to put Spain’s price drop of 6.8 percent in perspective, house prices in Ireland, whose housing boom is most frequently compared with Spain’s, fell 9.7 percent year on year in February — the 24th consecutive month. In the UK, prices had dropped 12.3 percent over the same period.

‘I think we are all aware that prices had not adjusted to their true value. This tendency shows the adjustment,’ Anunciacion Romero, housing ministry director general told journalists. She declined to say were prices would go from here.

A recent Reuters housing poll of Spanish and foreign-based economists found that on average prices were expected to fall 32 percent from their 2007 peak.

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“It appears to be the beginning of the end of the worst period for property sales since the crisis began,” says the article. Pointing to encouraging signs that real estate markets may have bottomed out in the US, the UK, and France, the article suggests that Spain may be part of the trend.

The optimism also comes from a new report by Gonzalo Bernardos, a property market expert and professor of economics at the University of Barcelona, who argues that Spanish property market will come back to life this year, after a dismal 2008.

“There are five key reasons for saying that there will be more home sales in 2009 than there were in 2008,” writes Bernardos in his report. “Interest rates are lower; house prices have fallen back to their 2003 levels; banks are lending more; investors are coming back; and many people who were thinking of renting have decided to buy.”

Demand for housing is tempered by the cost of mortgage borrowing. With interest rates declining, Bernardos expects sales to pick up. “There is a fundamental variable,” explains Bernardos. “People buy homes in response to mortgage costs, which have gone from rates of 6.25% in September to 3.25% today. We are talking, in general terms, of a fall in mortgage repayments of 40%.”

There is, however, a flaw in this argument, which the article in El Mundo does not pick up. Euribor – the base rate normally used to calculate mortgage rates in Spain – may have fallen rapidly to historic lows, but the average interest rate charged on new mortgages is actually rising, and credit terms getting tighter, making it more expensive for new borrowers to buy homes. Falling Spanish mortgage rates are only benefiting existing borrowers, who already have a home.

Another positive sign, says the article, is that housing starts picked up in the last quarter of 2008, rising by 7% compared to the previous quarter.

The recovery is already underway, suggests Bernardos, who says that, so far this year “sales have been between 25% and 40% higher than in the same period last year.”

So the market bottomed out in 2008, goes the argument, when house sales fell by 28.8% whilst property prices fell by 5.4%, all according to official figures. On the question of prices, Bernardos doesn’t believe the official figures. “The fall in prices hasn’t been less than 20%, and in some places much more,” says Bernardos.

Another real estate expert cited in the article says that sales rates at new developments have picked up significantly. “In many developments they have sold more in the first quarter of 2009 than in the whole of 2008,” he says, also arguing that “prices have already bottomed out.” “Banks didn’t know where the bottom was, now they do and they are giving 80% mortgages because they feel the market has bottomed out,” he goes on, whilst also warning that “nobody should expect bargains at 50% discounts. That’s not going to happen.”

Whilst Bernardos expects the market to return to life this year, that doesn’t mean he expects prices to start rising soon.

“Sales will start to rise in 2009, whilst prices will stop falling in most places by the end of 2010,” writes Bernardos in his report.

But if Bernardos is right, and prices continue to fall this year, that will encourage people to delay their purchase decision, and reduce the number of sales. The article does not pick any holes in his arguments.

And at no point does the article mention of the second home market, which operates differently to the primary housing market. Given the present state of the economy, with unemployment rising across Europe, it’s not hard to imagine that it may take a while longer for sales of holiday homes to pick up.

Story from Mark Stucklin

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3. “Market for New Homes Recovering”

Door de wereldwijde economische crisis en het in elkaar storten van de huizenmarkt in Spanje, liggen de koopjes voor het oprapen. Spaanse banken lenen geen geld meer uit, maar dumpen (vakantie)huizen van mensen die hun hypotheek niet meer kunnen betalen. Volgens onroerendgoedadviseur Michel Geutjes van LandCapital moet je wel over cash geld beschikken om voor een prikkie een huis onder de Spaanse zon te kunnen kopen. Geutjes: “Spaanse banken willen juist nu geld en zekerheid. Kun je dat bieden, dan word je met open armen ontvangen.”

Lees verder: De Telegraaf

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Until recently, foreign nationals had to pay 35pc of any gains made on Spanish properties as tax. This compared to just 15pc paid by Spanish nationals. The European Union challenged the rules, claiming they were discriminatory, and since the start of 2007 the Spanish tax authorities have levied the same 15pc tax rate on Spanish and overseas property owners.

The Spanish court ruled that the initial case put forward by solicitors Costa, Alvarez, Manglano & Associates on behalf of Mr and Mrs Roy from the UK was so convincing that there was no need for it to be passed on to the European Courts of Justice (ECJ), which is the usual procedure.

“Anyone else who believes they have been affected should come forward now with their cases,” said Emilio Alvarez, from the law firm. Six hundred other British couples are now putting cases forward, and all the cases will be decided separately by the Spanish court.

Taxpayers are also entitled to claim a refund for missing interest at a rate of 6pc from the date the reclaim is presented, making the total reclaim even higher. You are eligible if you sold a property in Spain between July 2004 and December 31 2006 and were not a fiscal resident in Spain when you sold it. You also have to have paid capital gains tax on the property to claim and need to have sold the property as an individual rather than a company.

From: Telegraph

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House prices were falling in every European market by the end of 2008 when adjusted for inflation, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, although a few such as Greece and the Netherlands were still slightly positive for the year as a whole after initial growth.

Core markets are set to suffer “marked downturns” in 2009, according to he report, written by Professor Michael Ball, who blames significant falls in mortgage lending, coupled with the economic downturn.

Professor Ball said: “The world financial crisis and economic downswing have hit European housing markets badly. Some countries, like Ireland and the UK, led the decline but by the last quarter of 2008 the effects had spread across Europe.

“There is greater synchronisation of housing market decline in Europe than has been seen in the past and there are going to be some tough times before marked recovery occurs.”

Rics said that any future revival of European housing relies on the ability of European governments to cope with the mortgage credit shortage as well as the scale of the economic recession.

The UK was one of the worst performing markets, where house prices fell 16 per cent in 2008, second only to Baltic states such as Estonia, where prices dropped 23 per cent but which has a relatively small residential market.

The UK housing market continued to weaken last month according to the Halifax house price index yesterday. Prices fell by 2.3 per cent in February, more than reversing an upward bounce in January. In the three months to February, the decline was 3.6 per cent.

House prices also fell significantly in central and eastern Europe, Ireland, France and amongst the Nordic countries last year.

In contrast, previous years saw house prices in countries such as Estonia as well as Scandinavia, central and eastern Europe and parts of the Mediterranean outpace other European countries.

Rics said that even those economies that did not experience a boom in house prices have not been spared from the squeeze in the market. In Germany and Austria, it said, a lack of credit has hit demand and it predicts a further fall in house prices and activity in 2009. Sales also declined in Italy, where mortgage growth was negative in 2008 for the first time in more than a decade.

Spanish house prices surprisingly recorded only moderate price falls. In central and eastern Europe, Rics said that the worsening financial turmoil has hit residential markets very hard, with both transaction levels and prices down significantly.

From: Financial Times

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Of the people quizzed by the recent survey, the vast majority who were looking for a property abroad were under retirement age, and 68 per cent of those who wanted to live in Spain were under 65 years of age. At the same time, of those who had already bought a property in the country, 50 per cent were under the age of 35.

This points to a shift in perceptions of the country, as well as in how agents and developers are attracting buyers and residents to the country. It also reflects on how these buyers will influence Spain in the future. Younger generations are more likely to integrate into Spanish communities, and may encourage their children to learn Spanish from an early age.

Halifax Head of European Operations, Ian Smith, commented, “It has long been assumed that only the older generation is buying property in Spain, but this is far from the case, as it is also proving to be a popular location amongst younger age groups.”

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Martin Dell of Kyero.com claims that, while buyers are likely to remain “very price conscious” over the next 12 months, there will be an increase in the number of people investing in Spain next year.

He believes the Spanish property market will be helped by a “more buoyant European economy” in 2009, resulting in an “improved flow of credit and renewed optimism in the property market”.

Mr Dell explains that recent events in Spain’s financial sector, such as the Metrovacesa debt for equity deal, demonstrate that financial analysts in the country envisage a turning point for the economy.

“Next year, I see an opportunity for European buyers to acquire Spanish property at bargain prices,” he comments.

The Sanahuja family, which controls over 80% of the capital in Metrovacesa, has agreed to give creditors a 54.75% holding in the company in exchange for the cancellation of debt worth 2.1 billion euros.

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Thousands of Britons who sold a property in Spain during this period could be owed a 20 per cent tax rebate from the Spanish government.

Initial estimates put the total amount to be reclaimed by British citizens at £11,000 per person, totalling an estimated £37m.

However, over the last few months hundreds of Brits have registered average reclaims of more than £19,300 each – totalling more than an estimated £86m.

It has been estimated that somewhere in the region of 4,500 British people, plus thousands more residents in other European countries, may now be entitled to reclaim their tax.

For more information, see www.spanishtaxreclaim.co.uk.

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Ryanair already flies to 10 UK destinations from Málaga and will now add Glasgow Prestwick, London Stansted, Birmingham and Edinburgh to that list. The airline predicts there could be an extra 240,000 passengers a year on these new routes, including an extra 100,000 from Birmingham alone.

Ryanair has reported that just days since announcing the new routes 5,000 tickets have already been sold for Glasgow, 6,000 for London Stansted, 5,500 for Edinburgh, and 13,000 for Birmingham.

The new flights will also attract an increasing number of holidaymakers, boosting the buy-to-let market as well.

For more see www.ryanair.com

In addition to the mortgage relief, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister, unveiled tax benefits and financial incentives designed to help home-buyers and promote job creation, especially in industries such as alternative energy that the government wants to promote.

“The government is convinced that it has the capacity, strength and determination to ensure that the families in this country in the most difficulty are supported and helped,” Mr Zapatero said.

Read more at Financial Times

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Met de flitstrein van Malaga naar Madrid in tweeënhalf uur

Behalve de AVE tussen Barcelona en Madrid via Tarragona rijden op het Iberisch schiereiland ook hogesnelheidstreinen tussen Madrid en Sevilla en Malaga via Cordoba. Ook tussen Madrid en Toledo en tussen Madrid en Huesca via Zaragoza. In de toekomst worden ook Santiago de Compostella in Gallicië en San Sebastian in Baskenland op het AVE-net aangesloten. De hogesnelheidslijn van Barcelona via Perpignan naar Montpellier in Zuid-Frankrijk is volop in aanleg. AVE rijdt vrijwel altijd op tijd. Renfe geeft, vanaf 15 minuten vertraging, de helft van de ticketprijs terug; bij meer dan een halfuur vertraging de volle ticketprijs. In Nederland te boeken bij NSHispeed, tel. 0900 – 9296. Kijk voor meer info en dienstregeling op www.renfe.com

Lees verder: De Telegraaf

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The media has covered a number of raffles over the past few months in which a house or property is given away to one lucky winning ticket holder. None of these can compete however with the latest property draw ‘San Blas’ unveiled this week. The raffle will see San Blas, a magnificently restored old Spanish cortijo set in the beautiful Andalucían countryside, and worth around a cool 1.5 Million be handed over to the prize winner holding the lucky ticket costing a mere 25 Euros. More unusual about this raffle is the fact that the lucky ticket holder will not only win a stunning 4 bedroom house but a complete self catering holiday complex too. The San Blas raffle is truly unrivalled by any other property draw and offers the winner a truly life changing prize.

Buy your ticket at www.sanblasforsale.com

Gevraagd naar welk gebied de interesse uitging, koos een relatief kleine groep (8%) van de bezoekers voor een tweede huis in Nederland. Veruit de meeste belangstelling ging uit naar een ander Europees land (81%). Beide uitkomsten zijn vergelijkbaar met vorig jaar. Frankrijk (30%) neemt nog steeds de koppositie in van de meest populaire landen, gevolgd door Spanje (23%) en Italië (13%). Turkije en Nederland verdwenen uit de top 5, ten gunste van Oostenrijk (12%) en Duitsland (8%).

Opvallend is de toename van niet-Europese landen als bestemming voor een tweede huis: van 18% naar 24%. Dit is mede te verklaren vanwege de zwakke dollar met als gevolg een toegenomen belangstelling voor huizen in de ’dollar’-landen.

Als gebruiksdoeleinden werden achtereenvolgens genoemd: voor eigen vakanties, voor permanente bewoning, als belegging of investering en voor overwintering. De bezoekers dachten gemiddeld €227.100 te investeren.

Bron: De Telegraaf

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There are a certain number of documents that your lawyer must ensure are in order before you complete a purchase:

• The seller’s own title deed. Know in Spain as the Escritura Pública. This is the registered title deed of the property. It is inscribed in the Registro de la Propiedad, the Property Registry, and it is the only guarantee of title in Spain. In this title deed you will find a description of the property, the details of the owner, if there is a mortgage or court embargo existing on the property.
   
• The Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles. The receipt of the owner’s annual property tax, called the IBI. This receipt is very important for two reasons. First, it will provide proof that there are no outstanding taxes due on the property. Ideally, with an old property you should ask to see the last 5 year’s receipts. Second, the IBI receipt will show you the property’s cadastral reference number and also the Valor Catastral, the official assessed value of the property. This is very important because various taxes are based on it.
   
• The cadastral certificate. The Catastro is a second system of property registration which concentrates on the location and exact boundaries of the property. The certification comes in two parts, one being a description in words of the property, the other a graphic representation, either by a plan or aerial photograph.

It is important to realise that in Spain until a deposit has been paid and a private contract (agreeing the purchase price) has been signed by the seller and your lawyer, the property is still considered to be for sale and could be sold to anyone making another offer.

Overall, the average house price in Spain appears to have increased from €240,000 to €245,300 – in just three months. In the current market conditions, how can an apparent increase in house prices be explained?

Digging a little further, the overall increase can be narrowed down to 10 provinces which have experienced sizable quarterly increases themselves.

In Malaga province, average property prices have increased 4.3 percent during the third quarter, while showing an average yearly increase of 1.4 percent. Especially properties with 2 to 5 bedrooms seem to enjoying increasing popularity among buyers.

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Illegal building had been tolerated in Andalusia. The town halls levied a fine of 5 per cent of building costs for a completed property and issued a permit. Under the new law, fines go up to 400 per cent of building costs, and properties can be demolished.

The aim of the new law is to prevent building on rural land unless it is for agriculture or tourism. It doesn’t matter whether you own five acres or 5,000 – you can’t build a new house. The only exception is that you can redevelop the site of an old property, but you’re restricted to the existing dimensions, and other restrictions may apply. And to add to the confusion, there seem to be different interpretations of the law in different provinces, or even towns.

This law, in force since 2003, is aimed at ensuring urban developments are contained within set rules and rural developments are limited to protect the countryside. Fines have been increased from between 1 and 5 per cent of construction costs to 12 per cent of market value. Even suppliers such as water and electricity companies can be fined for working on sites that don’t meet the requirements of the law.

In rural areas, no building is permitted on land unless for agricultural or residential tourism. New houses can be constructed on the site of existing ruins as long as there is a roof, and only a dwelling house for the farmer is permitted. The law does not cover agricultural buildings. Legal challenges have been brought against the law by Torremolinos council and others on the Costa del Sol have indicated they will follow suit.