Spanish House Price Trends - February 2010

February 2010 could be the turning point for Spanish house prices.

When I last did an article about house prices in Spain I used data from the official Spanish price tracking model, Indice de Mercados Inmobiliarios Espanoles, the IMIE index. This house price tracking system showed that property prices rose from September 2002 by 15-20% per year until September 2006 then started to decline to a lower 5% increase in 2007, then -5% in 2008 then -10% in 2009. On checking this database again by February 2010 the slide to the bottom has now decelerated to -5% year on year decline. This is actually indicating an increase in prices over the last few months.

The Costas are still lagging behind as the property slide decelerates as they have seen a -7% drop year on year to February 2010. The lowest decline has been in the country municipal areas which did not benefit from the property boom, they have slowed to under -3% year on year decline.

Kyero the large property agent has another database of asking prices and their index is showing an average drop of only -1.4% with some modest and some spectacular increases in December 2009 as opposed to September 2009. They report small rises of 2% in Alicante with a large number of areas static or down slightly. However on the up side they report some winners with large rises of 19% in Caceres, 14% in Badajoz albeit from a very low base, 10% in Gran Canaria and 8% in Barcelona. The losers are Cordoba with -3%, Cadiz with -6%, Fuerteventura with a massive -17% but the prize for the biggest drop in only three months is a whooping -23% in Huelva.

It would not surprise many to learn that Spanish banks are hiding their true losses by not declaring properties in negative equity on their balance sheet. In order to off load some of the repossessed homes on their books, Bancaja's has issued a new mortgage deal which requires no interest or capital repayment for three years, has no administration fee and offers a LTV of 90%. However it is only available on homes that belong to Bancaja. The properties are mostly located on the costas if anyone is willing to take the risk.

H. McDubhgaill is the publisher of http://www.OwnerDirectSpain.com - the online resource for buying or exchanging property in Spain from owners direct.

Click the following link to list your Spanish property for a as little as €9.99 http://www.ownerdirectspain.com/page-spain-selling-your-property-direct-19.html

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