How on earth do you navigate through more than 300,000 discounted properties in Spain? Zoe Dare Hall throws some light on property auctions and bank repossessions
I
t’s not often that you see a Boxing Day sale-style stampede when a property goes on the market, but it is happening in some parts of Spain. Banks are offl oading some of
their €176 billion (£145.4 billion) worth of troubled property assets, including repossessed properties and bad debts to bankrupt developers, at such discounted prices – and with the promise of 100 per cent mortgages over 40 years – that young Spaniards, who are the hardest hit by unemployment in Europe, are seizing their chance to become homeowners. Many of these bank-owned
properties will be of little interest to Brits looking for a getaway in the Spanish sun. One recent frenzy, for example,
was for two-bedroom fl ats in a Madrid suburb, discounted by 50 per cent to £54,000.
But there are thousands of cut- price properties on the coast that will suit holiday home buyers down to the ground – if only they can fi nd a way of dealing with the Spanish banks, who have 328,687 repossessions to sell, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute. Spanish banks may be the
country’s biggest estate agents now, but they aren’t well versed in marketing properties, especially not to foreigners who probably don’t speak Spanish. “Spanish banks have also become
very picky about who they deal with, as they are worried about getting ripped off by unscrupulous agents,” says Peter Birkett, managing director of Property Repossessions Spain (
propertyrepossessionsspain.com). “They won’t even talk to individuals. One bank we deal with has 11,000 properties on their books across Spain, so where would your
average buyer start if they turned up at one local branch?” Bear in mind, too, that a bank
probably only has the property because the owner could not sell it. “It’s unlikely that the bank will
have prime-located properties or anyone sensible for overseas buyers to talk to,” says Campbell D Ferguson, director of the Rics- governed, Spain-based chartered surveyors Survey Spain (00 34 952 923 520,
surveyspain.com). “The bank isn’t there to do you
any favours. They’re just looking for the best deal for themselves, and it’s suspected that the best properties are cherry-picked by preferred buyers, such as their employees, before they go on to the wider market. So the buyer has to be prudent and look after themselves.” So where can buyers fi nd help in looking for a Spanish bargain? Read on…
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SPANISH BARGAINS
SPANISH BARGAIN HOW TO BAG A
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