Rob Horgan
SPAIN’S fourth largest banking group, Banco Popular, is giving the country’s booming property market an added boost.
The bank is aiming to offload €451 million-worth of its property portfolio before the summer is out, to balance the books.
Apartments, land and hotels are among the properties up for grabs.
The inventory is part of some €10 billion in property or distressed loans currently on offer by Spanish banks to clear the decks.
Presumably that only involves the property they actually own. What about all the properties they’ve taken back (due to the buyers not being able or willing to pay for) but not declared their ownership of? By doing that they avoid the costs incurred when a property is on an urbanization such as community & other fees. Seems banks continue to be a law unto themselves.
Flooding the marked with cheap houses can hardly be seen as stimulation. Scores are still empty or waiting for buyers.
Yet we have property websites claiming sales are through the roof and prices rising. Drive through any resort on the Costas and there is block after block lying empty.