NPL&REO News

Cerberus appoints Arrow Capital to manage €750 million logistics portfolio

12 April, 2019

Arrow Capital Partners has been appointed by an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management to assist in the management of an €750 million portfolio of light industrial and logistics assets in Spain.

The industrial portfolio includes over 1,000 light industrial and logistics assets totalling approximately 5,000,000 sqm located close to Spain’s major cities and transport hubs with circa 60% within the Barcelona and Madrid metropolitan areas. The portfolio will be managed by Arrow Capital Partners’ Spanish team established in early 2018, based in Madrid and led by Howard Barnes.

Robert Falls, Managing Director at Cerberus European Servicing, Ltd, Cerberus’ affiliated advisor with regards to asset management, property management, and loan servicing platform, commented: «We are pleased to be partnering again with the team at Arrow Capital Partners to assist us with the management of our industrial portfolio in Spain. We’ve developed a great relationship with Arrow Capital Partners over the years through various European mandates and we look forward to leveraging their expertise and capabilities in the Spanish market.»

Howard Barnes, Head of Spain at Arrow Capital Partners, says: «As the Spanish economy continues to recover from the financial crisis, we are seeing some excellent entry opportunities, particularly for us as we are looking to acquire light industrial and logistics assets of over €200 million in the next year or so. As growth in Spain’s e-commerce sector continues off a low base, a marked supply / demand imbalance has developed in the light industrial and logistics sectors, increasing rents and capital values.»

Author: IPE Real Assets
Photo: iStock.com/Ron Full
Edition: Prime Yield

Notaries report 2.6% January rise in Spanish property prices

26 March, 2019

Sales figures were stagnant across Spain for the third month in row, latest data from the countries’ notaries show. These report y-o-y increases of just 0.3% in the number of houses sold and of 6.1% in mortgage activity in January 2009.

These figures seem to show some signals of slowing down in the level of activity in Spain’s real estate market, after a long period of significant growth. In November, the notaries confirmed a year-on-year drop in sales figures for the first time in 2018, albeit a very slight one (the decrease has been revised to just 0.2%), and in December the upward movement was a mere 3%, whereas as recently as last summer double-digit increases were still the norm.

During the first month of 2019, according to the notaries’ provisional figures, were recorded 40,388 sales and purchases following a general upward trend which began in early 2013, and the average price paid for units of housing rose by 2.6% to 1,424 €/sqm.

Meanwhile, the number of mortgages constituted on housing purchases during January was 19,390, 6.1% more than in the same month in 2018, and the average loan capital was up by 0.9% at €135,616. Both this figure and the average market price of property have risen in each of the last nine months.

These data show that 48% of all purchases were financed by mortgage loans in January – the figure still has not reached 50% since 2010 – and that in these cases the mortgages accounted for an average of 74.7% of the sale price, close to the lowest proportion in the last 12 years.

Original Story: Murcia Today | News

Photo: FreeImages.com/Blues 57

Edition:Prime Yield

Property prices: buyer-seller expectation gaps widen to 22%

21 March, 2019

The average price of property rocketed by 15.4% in the space of a year in Portugal. But while real estate continues to result in relatively decent profits for sellers, new data also indicates that their expectations of the property’s worth and its actual selling price have widened further this past year.

Expectations in Portugal are usually that a potential buyer of property will offer less than the price listed by the seller.

A decade ago, prior to the economic crisis, the so-called buyer-seller expectation gap stood at around 10%. But since the onset of the well-documented property market boom, sellers appear to have even greater unrealistic prospects of their property’s actual value. In Lisbon, this differential between buyers and sellers has now climbed to 22%, while in Porto, this figure has risen to as high as 30%.

These figures were calculated by real estate market analysts Confidencial Imobiliário (CI), throughout comparing declared values once property deeds are signed against values contained on the Residential Information System, showing listing prices.

Other figures published a few days earlier showed that average property prices in Portugal ballooned by 15.4% in the space of 12 months leading up to December 2018.

Accumulated increases since late 2013, now stand at 46% CI said, yet sellers now appear to have an even greater distorted perception of the market values of their property.

However, this is far from meaning that we are seeing the end of rising property prices in Portugal, only at a more sedate rate. A view that is further substantiated by the recent Portuguese Housing Market Survey, from CI, which found that prices are set to start levelling out, though maintaining an upward curve.

Meanwhile, rental properties have also continued to record price increases, and rose by 37% in 2018 when compared with the previous year. The average rent in Portugal currently stands at €1,106/month. The five districts with the highest average rental prices in 2018 are Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Beja and Setúbal.

Original Story:The Portugal News | Brendan de Beer
Photo: FreeImages.com/Hugo Humberto Plácido da Silva
Edition:Prime Yield

Spain’s housing market shows signs of cooling in loans

20 March, 2019

Spain’s vibrant property market just showed another small signal of slowing in the end of 2018, as the new loans in houses recorded the lowest pace in four years, Reuters reported.

While the number of new mortgages on houses reached a seven-year high in 2018, the annual growth slowed, according to latest data released by the Spanish National Statistics Institute. The €42.7 billion lent represented a double-digit jump from 2017, yet the increase eased from the previous year’s.

The number of new house mortgages rose 10.3% last year, INE said. That’s down from growth of 10.7% in 2017, 14.6% in 2016 and 20.8% in 2015.

As an investment, homes have been beating many major alternatives. Prices rose an annual 7.2% in the third quarter, the most recent periodavailable. That compares with a drop of 9.6% in the benchmark IBEX 35 index in the same 12 months, and a 0.1% gain in a one-year to 10-year Spanish government bonds index.

Activity varied widely across the country, with regions like Valencia and Madrid showing more than 14% mortgage volume growth, to increases as low as 5.2% in Galicia and 2.4% in Aragon.

Surging purchase prices and rents in big cities in the past few years nevertheless are provoking the Socialist government to plan urgent legislation to cap apartment rents. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is negotiating a mechanism that could allow regions to limit rental increases, El Pais newspaper reported.

Sanchez would need parliament to ratify the decree. He faces possibly being driven from power in April general elections, according to opinion polls.

Original Story: Bloomberg | Todd White and Macarena Muñoz Montijano
Photo: FreeImages.com/Philipp K
Edition:Prime Yield

Bankia hires KPMG to sell 3 NPL and REO portfolios worth €1 billion

6 March, 2019

Bankia is on track to meet one year in advance the goal of freeing itself from the real estate heavy burden that is still in its balance sheets, by hiring KPMG to sell 3 portfolios involving nonperforming loans (NPL) and real estate owned (REO) assets worth €1 billion. The goal is to complete the sales in the mid-year.

The Spanish bank nationalized in 2012 set the goal to clean from its sheets almost €9 billion in nonperforming assets related to real estate between 2018-2020. Along 2018 alone Bankia sold bad assets worth €6 billion. And this year goes in the right direction to achieve its aim a year before the scheduled.

In a more advanced sales stage, one of the portfolios that are now in the market includes developer’s NPL with a gross book value of €500 milion. The second portfolio to be put for sale involves unsecured NPL worth €200 million. According to El Confidencial, a third portfolio is likely to enter in the market soon, constituted of REO (most of it land and dwellings) in the value of hundreds million euros, whose dimension is yet to define.

Original Story: El Confidencial | Jorge Zuloaga
Photo: Bankia
Translation and Edition: Prime Yield

Haya Real Estate launches the Marconi Project

4 March, 2019

Spanish servicer Haya Real Estate has just launched the Marconi Project: a set of non-performing loans (NPL) secured by real estate collateral owned by Sareb, for more than €188 million, the company informed.

This project is made up of loans that have around 1,445 registered properties under guarantee collected in 33 files. The average ticket for each of the loans offered is around €5.7 million, and 98% of the guarantees associated with these loans are already-completed homes, garages and store-rooms, while the remaining 2% is comprised of land, commercial premises and industrial buildings.

Most of these real estate collateral-backed loans are located mainly in Catalonia, Costa del Sol, Canary Islands and Madrid.

Project Marconi is divided into two phases, a non-biding phase and a biding phase, the first beginning at the end of February and ending in April with the submission of bidding offers and the closing of the transaction.

Haya Real Estate is a Spanish company leader in management of secured credit and real estate assets. Since 2016, the different sales processes launched by Haya allowed the divestment of more than €470 million.

Original Story: Haya | Kreab
Photo: Haya Real Estate
Edition:Prime Yield

Brazil Government supports foreign land purchases

11 February, 2019

Brazil’s land issues secretary within the Agriculture Ministry said that the government offers its support for foreign investors interested in buying land in Brazil, a practice which is currently prohibited.

A change to the law to allow foreigners to directly purchase land would require Congressional approval, Secretary Nabhan Garcia told reporters.

Original story: Reuters | Jack Spring and Anthony Boadle
Photo: FreeImages/ Marcel Krings
Edition: Prime Yield

Portuguese REITS have come into force

7 February, 2019

Starting February 1^st, a REITs regime has come into force in Portugal.

Known as SIGI – Sociedades de Investimento e Gestão Imobiliária, the Portuguese REITS are regulated by the legislative decree nº19/2019, published in Diario da República on 28^thJanuary.

This legislation sets a minimum share capital of €5 million to create a SIGI, which has to be listed into the stock market. Among all the other requirements which can be found in the diploma, for instance these societies have also a limited indebtedness level correspondent to a maximum of 60% of its total assets value.

Aiming to boost even further the real estate investment activity in Portugal, and particularly the home rental market, the SIGI portfolios must include property assets dedicated rental or to be explored in other ways of long term economic use. Even though the residential market is appointed as its main focus, it is not obligatory as the SIGI may also invest in other asset classes, such as retail, logistics or offices, for instance.

Original Story: Vida Imobiliária | Fernanda Cerqueira
Photo: FreeImages.com/Hugo Humberto Plácido da Silva
Translation and Edition:Prime Yield