[Mark Stücklin]

Interesting article from AEP in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11187656/AEP-Spains-export-led-recovery-comes-at-a-price.html

This is what he writes about the property market.

Fernando de Acuña, head of Spain’s top property consultancy RR de Acuña, warns that the country is going through an illusionary mini-bubble, with people betting on a fresh cycle in the housing market when the crippling effects of the last boom-bust cycle have yet to be cleared.
“We think prices will fall by another 20pc over the next three years. There is still an overhang of 1.7m unsold homes in an annual market of around 230,000. The developers have 467,000 units on their books, and half of these are indirectly controlled by the banks. It is extend and pretend. There are another 150,000 in foreclosure proceedings that are backed up because the courts are saturated,” he said.
“People don’t want to hear any of this. We were called criminals and terrorists when we warned in 2007 the country was going to Hell, but we were right, because we base our analysis on the facts and not on wishful thinking,” he said.

[DBMarcos99]

Heh, strange you pick up on an overhang of 1.7 million homes in that article, when you published a report just a couple of days back stating “The supply of unsold homes in Spain will shrink to 563,000 units in 2015, a 40 percent decline from 2010”  SPI Report

Not sure either that RR de Acunya are doing their prestige any good by crying “we saw the crisis coming in 2007!”  Everyone (almost) saw the crisis coming by then, even the pensioners queuing in the bank run outside Northern Rock. If they shouted about predicting the crisis in 2004/5 they’d gain more credibility…

Personally I can’t see prices going up much until rents start to rise – ok this may be happening in 1 or 2 overheating places like Barcelona and central madrid, but rents are still very reasonable in much of the country.

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