NPL&REO News

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

New housing loans hit the lowest level from the last 11 months

25 March, 2019

In January 2019 the Portuguese banks grant €747 million in housing loans, hitting the lowest value since February 2018, data from the Bank of Portugal show.

According to the statistics now released by Portugal’s central bank, this figure is €156 million lower than the €903 million in housing loans made available in December.

After three consecutive months of growth in the housing loans granting, this upward trend seems to reverse within the start of the new year, however, it should be noted that the month of January is a period traditionally marked by a slowdown in lending.

Original Story: ECO News
Photo:FreeImages.com/Svilen Milev
Edition:Prime Yield

Recovery in Greece’s housing sector gains momentum

21 March, 2019

The recovery om Greece’s housing market gained momentum over the last quarter of 2018, with prices rising 2.5% year-on-year, as shown by the latest data released by the Greek central bank.

Greek housing prices had declined by 42% since 2008’s peak data showed, suggesting that a recovering economy and growing interest might lift property prices further.

Apartment prices rose 2.5% in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2017, Bank of Greece data showed, with the recovery accelerating from a downwardly revised 2.1% increase in the third quarter of last year.

More specifically, prices rose by 4.2% year-on-year in Athens, where home-sharing platforms like Airbnb and a “golden visa” programme (a renewable five-year resident’s permit in return for a €250,000 investment in real estate) have grown very popular.

Prices had slid 1.0% in 2017 from a year earlier, taking the cumulative fall since 2008, when the country’s protracted recession began, to 42%.

«It (new data) is a further confirmation of the uptrend in market prices, with Athens starring after an increase of 4.2%», National Bank economist Nikos Magginas told Reuters.

«It’s the result of rising demand and a shrinking stock of available-for-sale residential real estate», he added.

A projected rise in real disposable income of about 2% this year, coupled with improving economic sentiment and nascent signs of a pick-up in demand for mortgage credit, should further boost real estate prices in 2019, Magginas said.

Property accounts for a large chunk of household wealth in Greece, which has one of the highest home ownership rates in Europe at 80%, versus a European Union average of 70%, according to the European Mortgage Federation.

Original Story: Reuters | George Georgipoulos
Photo: FreeImages.com/Toomas Järvet
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

Rental prices outpaced inflation for second consecutive month

18 March, 2019

Residential rental prices in Brazil continued to show positive movement in January rising 0.41%. After December’s rise of 0.38%, this was the second consecutive month rental prices outpaced the month’s inflation rate, which in January was 0.32%, as calculated by the IPCA/IBGE (National Consumer Price Index/Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).

The latest rental figures were published in the FipeZap Rental Index, which tracks real estate rental listings across Brazil’s twenty-five largest cities.

Seventeen of the twenty-five cities in the survey registered increases in January with Brasília (2.15%), São José do Rio Preto (1.48%), São José (1.28%), and Joinville (0.96%) showing the biggest increases.

Notably, Rio de Janeiro showed a nominal increase in rental prices in January of 0.30% but still fell just short of the month’s inflation rate.

Meanwhile, rental prices in São Paulo registered an increase greater than inflation of 0.73%.

Of the eight cities in the survey that showed declines in January, the biggest declines were seen in Salvador and Fortaleza, where residential rental prices in the two cities declined 0.96% and 0.51% respectively.

Looking at the last twelve-month period, average rental prices in Brazil overall have increased 2.39%, but was still short of the period’s inflation rate of 3.72%.

São Bernardo de Campo had the biggest increase in that period, up 9.92%, with the city of Joinville in Santa Catarina not too far behind, up 9.48%.

Over the twelve-month period, Rio de Janeiro rental prices decreased 3.09%, while São Paulo prices increased 4.03%.

January’s survey also showed the average price per square meter of the twenty-five cities. São Paulo city held the distinction of having Brazil’s most expensive residential rental prices in January with an average price of R$37.02/sqm.

Barueri, also in São Paulo state, was a distant second with rental prices hovering at R$31.96/sqm. Rio de Janeiro rounded out the top three in January at R$30.21/sqm.

Within the city of São Paulo, the upscale neighborhood of Vila Olímpia, which is home to the Brazilian offices of several multinational companies including Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, had the most expensive rental prices in the entire country with listings averaging R$75.99/sqm.

Meanwhile in Rio, Leblon and Ipanema had the highest rental prices in the city at R$54.83/sqm and R$51.75/sqm respectively.

The FipeZap Index monitors real estate sale prices across fifteen Brazilian cities and is a monthly gauge of property prices. It is prepared jointly by the university research center, Fipe (Economic Research Institute Foundation) and the Brazilian online real estate platform, Zap Properties.

Original Story:The Rio Times | Nelson Bele
Photo: FreeImages.com/Carlos Eduardo Livino
Edition:Prime Yield