real estate

For the first time in seven years, the number of houses and flats being built in Catalonia has increased. The figures for 2014 show that between 4,300 and 4,500 new properties have appeared on the market after seven years of decline. According to Lluís Marsà, President of the Promoters Association of Barcelona, the housing market is recovering due to the improving economy. Marsà says there is still one big obstacle remaining to consolidate the recovery of the sector: “The lack of bank financing which keeps people from purchasing new housing.” While this is a positive development, the housing market has still a long way to go. According to Marsà, “it will probably take 3 or 4 years to fully recover.”

Barcelona’s office rental sector is improving after years of decline. Real estate company Inmobiliaria Colonial has set the tone by releasing 23 million new shares. Colonial is one of Europe’s leading companies in the office rental market and besides the new shares, they have also bought the main office of food multinational company Gallina Blanca. The property, positioned on L’Hopitalet del Llobregat’s Plaça Europa, one of Greater Barcelona’s business districts, has an area of almost 5,000 square metres and has been sold for €10.4 million. The shares and the purchase both belong to a new strategy to recover from the crisis and get the market back on track.

The Catalan Government is now managing the sale of the 150 hectares owned by La Caixa on which the BCN World holiday resort should build its 6 macro-casinos. On Thursday the bank and the Catalan Executive signed the agreement, which comes the day after the private investor Veremonte announced it was postponing the land purchase once again. Veremonte had an exclusivity agreement to buy 500 hectares of land before December 10 at midnight for €380 million, but it postponed the purchase because the urban planning details were still unknown. However, the core of BCN World's project, which is the 6 Las Vegas style hotels and casinos as well as a luxury shopping mall, only takes up 150 hectares. The Catalan Government decided to jump in to strengthen the project and guarantee that the main plots will be available for private investors to build the casinos. It will manage the sale for the next 18 months, while the definitive and detailed urban planning for the area should be approved in July 2015. The other hectares will be directly sold by La Caixa.

Veremonte has decided not to buy the land to build the macro-casino and holiday resort yet and it will wait until it has a better knowledge of the town-planning project's details, which are currently being defined by the public authorities. The main company behind the holiday resort had an exclusivity right to purchase some 500 hectares of land from a Caixabank's subsidiary until December 10 at midnight for €380 million. Veremonte has confirmed it will continue to work on the $6 billion BCN World project with Hard Rock, Melco, Value Retail, Melià and Caesars Entertainment and it could buy the land at a later stage. After knowing about Veremonte's decision, the Catalan Government announced it had reached an agreement with Caixabank to manage the purchase of 150 hectares of land during 18 months at no cost, allowing other companies to buy some plots. They have also confirmed that the project will carry on, "with or without Veremonte". The first version of the town-planning project should be issued in later January and the definitive version should be approved during the summer months, in order to allow construction as from autumn 2015. 

Josep Lluís Núñez Clemente – aged 83 – and his son – who had been Director of the family company – have been accused of bribing tax inspectors in the 1990s regarding their private business and have entered jail this weekend for a 2 year sentence. Núñez senior chaired FC Barcelona between 1978 and 2000 but his sentence has nothing to do with the famous sports club's activities. After one of the longest judicial processes in Spain's history, Núñez senior and his son were initially convicted in July 2011 with 6 years in prison and a €2 million fine. They were accused of bribing tax inspectors with €1 million in order to avoid paying more than €13 million in taxes between 1991 and 1999, and of forging official documents. However, they appealed the decision and the Spanish Supreme Court reduced their prison time. They filed a last appeal to avoid going to prison but in October 2014 Barcelona's High Court ratified their imprisonment. Considering Núñez senior's age, he could be granted day parole in a few weeks.

The 18^th Edition of the Barcelona Meeting Point will take place between 29 October and 2 November in Fira de Barcelona's Montjuic venue. The trade fair is a real estate exhibition that brings together buyers and sellers to network and learn about the latest industry trends. This year there will be 265 participating companies from 23 countries. According to the show’s President, Enric Lacalle, it will be the first edition to open in a recovering housing sector, after 6 years of crisis and setbacks. The real estate market is strengthening; there was a 36.6% increase in the acquisition of houses by foreigners in 2013 and a 12.5% rise in housing sales throughout Spain. In addition, real estate investment in Barcelona is expected to exceed €1.6 billion in 2014, 30% more than last year. In fact, 21 international investment funds will participate in the trade fair. The show will also include a series of talks and presentations, and offer financing options for property purchase.

The value of homes in Catalonia increased by 1.6% during the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2013, according to the House Price Index of the Spanish Institute of Statistics (INE). In relation to the first quarter of this year, prices registered a 1.8% increase between March and June, whilst cumulatively over this year there was a 1.3% increase in property value in Catalonia. However, the prices of new flats rose by 8.7%, whilst second hand properties only saw a 0.1% growth in their value. In Spain as a whole, the House Price Index reached a 0.8% rate in annual terms, the first time this has happened at Spanish level since March 2008. 

The Catalan economy grew by 1.3% from July 2013 to June 2014. However, the economic recovery has particularly sped up and got stronger over the second quarter of 2014, when it grew by 0.6% in quarterly terms, according to data released on Wednesday by the Catalan Statistics Institute (Idescat) and the Catalan Finance Ministry. The GDP growth between April and June was higher than the one registered during the first quarter of the year, set at 0.4%. With the 0.6% registered at the end of June, Catalonia has achieved 5 consecutive quarters of posting positive figures, leaving the recession more than a year behind. Regarding economic sectors, services have led the economic recovery, posting a 1.8% annual growth at the end of the first half of 2014.

CatalunyaCaixa (CX) on Thursday confirmed the sale of its portfolio of high risk loans to US investment company Blackstone, consisting mainly of mortgages with a nominal value of €6.392 billion and provisions of €2.205 billion. The transaction involved the transfer of funds to a portfolio of asset-backed securities for an amount equal to its book value, €4.187 billion, with €3.615 billion supplied by Blackstone and Spain's public Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB) providing the remaining 572 million. With this divestment, the CX solvency ratio stood at 14.9% and coverage stands at 81.6%. After this sale, the liquid assets of CX will reach €16.848 billion and the company is now ready to face its full privatisation, after it was nationalised in 2012.  In addition, Blackstone had already bought CX's real estate business in June in a €40 million operation.

The sale of homes in Catalonia rose 13.1% this April, compared with the same month last year, according to the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE).  April 2014 saw the sale of 3,724 properties in Catalonia, 3,334 of which were free (89.5%) and 390 protected (10.5%).  Of these transactions, 32% corresponded to newly-built flats and 68% were of existing homes.  Across Spain, sales have increased by 5.3% in annual terms, with a total of 24,968 transactions registered. Thus, Catalonia sits comfortably above the Spanish average, but was surpassed by eight other Autonomous Communities, including the Basque Country, Cantabria and the Balearic Islands, where purchases increased by 48.8%, 41 6% and 28.5%, respectively.

Sales of residential real state in Catalonia increased by 42.8% in March compared to the same month in 2013, according to data released on Tuesday by the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE). In the whole of Spain, housing sales grew by 22.8% in the same period, with 27,047 transactions. In Catalonia, 3,944 residential units were sold: 1,267 were newly-built houses (32.12%) while the remaining 2,677 were second-hand (67.88%). 3,567 (90.44%) were open market while the remaining 377 (9.56%) were subsidised housing units. Catalonia is the Autonomous Community with the second highest percentage increase in sales, coming after the Balearic Islands, which registered 71% increase.

The Barcelona-based bank, which was totally nationalised in December 2012 and received a €9.08 billion bailout, has made profits of €532.2 million in 2013, which would represent €167.8 million without the extraordinary profits. In 2012, CatalunyaCaixa posted losses of €11.86 billion. In 2013, the operational costs were reduced by 13.1%, having drastically reduced the number of employees and branches. The bank's capital ratio is now 14.36% and the main capital following Basel III criteria reached 12.3%, which represents liquidity of €15.01 billion. With these figures, the Spanish Government is in a better position to sell CatalunyaCaixa, which forecasts profits also for 2014. This company was the result of merging the banking business of 3 savings banks in 2011: Caixa Catalunya, Caixa Tarragona and Caixa Manresa, which disappeared after a long tradition of social work. The operation was part of Spain's restructuring of the banking sector.

The Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, Santi Vila, who is also in charge of housing policies, presented on Tuesday the draft of a new tax bill on empty flats and houses owned by financial institutions in Catalonia. During a press conference, Vila explained that such a tax is looking to be an “incentive” for banks to make available their 15,000 flats spread across 70 municipalities with “proven demand” for housing, mainly around Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona, and which have been empty for more than 2 years without a justified cause. The amount of the tax will be based on the total number of square meters owned by the banks and will include significant accumulative bonuses if the institutions decide to rent their properties, notably for social housing. The Catalan Government estimates that banks own around 40,000 empty flats, including in areas with housing demand.

Housing sales in Catalonia have reached 45,064 units in 2013, representing a 4.8% increase on the previous year, according to data published on Wednesday by the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE). Such figures are the highest since 2010, when 55,857 transactions were registered. Besides, in monthly terms, in December 2013, there were 3,014home sales in Catalonia, amounting to a 2.6% increase on the same month last year. At Spanish level, residential property transactions dropped to 311,414 in 2013, meaning a 2.2% decrease. The December figures reveal a similar trend, with the number of sales falling to 22,723 units in the entire country, a 3.6% decrease compared to the same month last year.

Chinese Group Platinum Estates has purchased the former headquarters of Telefonica in Barcelona, located in the Eixample neighbourhood, for €56.4 million, according to a statement by Renta Corporación, which managed the transaction. Furthermore, investors will allocate €45 additional million to transform the building, once belonging to the first telecommunications company in Spain, into a block of flats. The building, located on the Roma Avenue, was the propriety of Cerep Investment, a company controlled by private equity Group Carlyle, until it went bankrupt in the spring of last year. The buyer is a family group based in Hong Kong, which is part of Platinum Estates and is led by textile tycoon Harry Mohinani, of Hindu origin.