The trauma of home repossessions is now hitting wealthier segments of Spanish society.
What started off as a housing bust that mainly affected immigrant families has been relentlessly moving up the social ladder as the crisis grinds on, according to new data from the AFES association of citizens affected by home repossessions in Madrid.
The following chart (click to enlarge) illustrates how the pain has moved up the social ladder over the last 4 years. The blue segment of each pie represents immigrants, red is Spanish families, green is guarantors (people who have guaranteed mortgage loans, usually parents or grandparents), and purple is business owners.
In 2009, 80pc of repossession victims were immigrant families, and just 5pc were businesspeople, whilst none of the victims were guarantors. Today it is a totally different story: Now 15pc of the people whose homes are repossessed are businesspeople, 20pc are guarantors, whilst immigrants have fallen to 40pc of the total.
Losing your home is now a problem for all classes of Spanish society, and much more so than in previous recessions, if anecdotal evidence I get from talking to people all over Spain is anything to go by.
James Raymond McVeigh says:
What ever happened to Polaris World & Parador Properties and their costomers, most of who lost everything.