El gobierno sube el impuesto del catastro inflando el valor legal de los pisos

En Bloomberg "Pain in Spain May Linger as Banks Seek to Avoid Property Losses" o como los bancos hacen lo que pueden para que los precios no bajen para no reconocer perdidas Banks bought about 110,000 homes to keep losses off their books as Spain’s property bubble burst, according to real estate researcher RR de Acuna & Asociados in Madrid. Now they’re using strategies reminiscent of the boom times -- 100 percent mortgages, low interest rates and free cars -- to sell homes, potentially slowing a drop in prices that’s needed to spur recovery from Spain’s worst recession in 60 years. Spanish lenders acquired at least 20 billion euros ($29 billion) of real estate in the past 18 months, according to data compiled by analysts at Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG. There are as many as 1.6 million empty homes in Spain, an overhang that may take seven years to clear with annual demand running at about 218,500 units, acuna & Asociados estimates. Financing Terms Instead of cutting prices, banks are offering more generous financing terms for their own properties than those being sold by third parties, said Fernando Rodriguez de Acuna, president of Acuna & Asociados. “The banks are reducing financing costs to get rid of their housing stock, but this solution has its limits,” he said in an interview. “The only way banks will be able to sell homes they haven’t sold in the mid-term will be to do so at a loss.” Santander, spain’s biggest lender, has acquired more than 4 billion euros of real estate and is selling homes through Altamira Santander Real Estate, its property arm. The problem is that banks may have taken real estate onto their books using valuations that don’t describe their true value, said the LSE’s Garicano. In a market where transactions have collapsed and some appraisals are based on sellers’ asking prices, valuations may bear little relation to what buyers are prepared to pay, he said. While the Bank of Spain requires lenders to set aside a provision equal to 10 percent of a property’s balance sheet value, they may be forced to report additional losses if asset values drop below the amount of the original debt. ‘Significant Losses’ “Some banks won’t let prices fall because they don’t want to recognize their losses,” said Pedro de Churruca, general director for Spain of property broker Jones Lang LaSalle in Madrid. “Significant losses would emerge if they did that.”