The banks are trying to bolster income from mortgage lending amid signs that Spain’s housing market is emerging from a seven-year slump. The euro-area interbank rate known as Euribor, used to price most floating-rate Spanish mortgages, has plunged to less than 0.3 percent from more than 5 percent in 2008. That’s stripped banks of the revenue earned on the 13.8 million mortgages they made during the 10-year real estate boom that ended in 2008.
Read MoreMortgage lending is rebounding in Spain and spreads are tightening
Spanish banks are trying to persuade homebuyers to change their habits by taking out American-style fixed-rate mortgages for as long as 30 years.
Read MoreEurope's commercial property market hottest since 2007
Europe's commercial property market sizzled last year, as demand for real estate in Paris, buoyant second-tier British and German markets and strong private equity interest in Ireland and Spain sent deals to their highest level since the financial crisis.
Europe saw 213.1 billion euros ($241.7 billion) of commercial real estate transactions in 2014, a rise of 13 percent over 2013, according to a report by research firm Real Capital Analytics (RCA) released on Wednesday.
Investor enthusiasm for safe haven Paris led France as a whole to a 31 percent rise in investment volumes. The capital attracted 74 cents of each euro invested in French commercial property market.
Read MoreEurope's commercial property market hottest since 2007
Europe's commercial property market sizzled last year, as demand for real estate in Paris, buoyant second-tier British and German markets and strong private equity interest in Ireland and Spain sent deals to their highest level since the financial crisis.
Read MoreCBRE GI extends life of European property fund
CBRE Global Investors, the Los Angeles-based real estate investment management firm, has agreed with investors to extend the life of its CBRE Retail Property Fund Iberica (RPFI) for a further five years.
The 2000-vintage vehicle is currently invested in shopping centers in Spain and Portugal and as of December 2014, the fund's portfolio comprises 14 assets with a total gross asset value of approximately €1.1 billion.
CBRE GI said it received “unanimous agreement” from its limited partners to extend the life of the fund, which had already received a two year extension back in April 2012, although it added a small number of investors decided to redeem their capital.
Spanish Home Prices Command First Annual Increase Since 2007 - Bloomberg Business
Spanish home prices posted their first annual increase last year since 2007 as the property market recovers from the worst recession in the country’s democratic history.
Read MoreEuropean Investors - Up the property ladder
European pension funds have demonstrated their commitment to investment in commercial real estate debt across Europe, with mixed success in deploying capital so far.
Some have trumped banks in offering cheaper financing, others would like to have taken bigger participations, while one or two have been slower to put capital to work, partly as a result of an increasingly competitive market for senior debt lending.
Read MoreInvestors turn their sights toward southern Europe
Southern Europe has begun to see increasing interest on the part of investors. A number of major portfolio sales have been transacted in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Read MoreEurope’s loan portfolio market to top €100bn this year – study
Europe’s property loan portfolio market could top €100bn this year, according to research by PwC.
The firm said the continent’s secondary market for loan portfolios is set to grow this year, with around €40bn in progress.
Read MoreSpain commercial property investment quadruples as Germany disappears
This is how European’s commercial property investment looked last year:
Germany though was noteable by its absence. Its closed sales decreased by 45% compared to 2013 according to the agency. Banks have been prioritising problematic portfolios so its no surprise that activity in Spain and Ireland is outstripping the European giant. In total European investment topped E80bn.
Source: Estates Gazette
ECB's Quantitative Easing to Boost Eurozone Property Markets
This week the ECB has taken markets somewhat by surprise with the scale of its quantitative easing (QE) program and this should help to consolidate recent bond yield and currency falls and hopefully pave the way for higher inflation expectations and also better GDP growth.
Maintaining market confidence will be crucial to making this happen in the short term of course but to deliver real and sustainable changes going forward, the QE program needs to encourage governments to get on with deeper structural reforms. In our opinion it will be the committed reformers like Spain who will be most rewarded with increased activity and inward investment.
Real estate remains a hot ticket for global investors
Investment in real estate looks set to continue rising in 2015, reflecting market stabilisation, says the global Investment Intentions Survey from industry associations INREV, ANREV and PREA.
Nearly 46% of investors have declared their intention to increase allocations to global real estate, with €42.5 billion being targeted at this asset class in 2015. Last year, market participants planned to allocate just under €35 billion. Figures from the latest INREV Investment Intentions Survey, published today, indicate ongoing interest in real estate from investors in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Total allocations are anticipated to rise to 11.3% from 10.8% currently.
This trend is being driven largely by investors from Asia Pacific who expect to increase current allocations from 9.8% to 11% this year, while their counterparts in North America and Europe will increase allocations from 8.6% to 9.1% and from 12.3% to 12.6%, respectively.
QE to amplify European real estate markets
Quantitative easing by the European Central Bank could have a “substantial” impact on property markets.
European property could benefit from the measures, according to advisory firm Cushman & Wakefield. Head of EMEA investment and strategy, David Hutchings, said a successful QE programme could have a substantial impact on property markets, with “even more demand” diverted to the market.
Read MoreECB’s Bond Buying Program Expected to Boost Commercial Real Estate Sales
Commercial real estate analysts were projecting that 2015 would be a strong year even before Thursday’s quantitative easing announcement by the European Central Bank.
The real estate services giant had been projecting a 5% to 10% increase in commercial real estate sales volume in 2015 over 2014. If the ECB’s €60 billion-per month bond buying program pushes interest rates down as expected, the increase in volume would be more like 20%, Mr. Hutchings said.
Read MoreBanks and home buyers seem to be more confident
Spanish banks regain confidence in real estate loans.
One of the various encouraging aspects of the latest figures published by Spain's notaries for November, in which further indications are shown that the country’s property market is at last achieving stability and even limited growth, is the increase in the extent to which residential property purchases are being financed by mortgage loans.
Read MoreExtremely low bond yields are pushing investors to take on riskier debt. Real estate assets offer inflation-protected, asset-backed secure income streams well in excess of those low yields
Investors across the globe are facing a trillion-dollar dilemma: either pay up for the safety of lending to nations like Germany and Switzerland, or buy riskier debt at a time of faltering economic growth.
Read MoreThe average 10-year bond yield of the US, Japan and Europe dropped this month to the lowest ever making property investments more attractive.
Investors who weren’t allowed to invest overseas before 2012, are flooding into the global market for prime commercial real estate after being given more freedom to deploy their $1.6 trillion of assets. That has meant good times for sellers of trophy real estate in major cities.
Read MoreEuropean commercial investment volumes to rise by 10% to €180bn in 2015
The most encouraging trend is the rebound in some of the peripheral markets, Ireland and parts of Southern Europe, with Dublin and Madrid in particular recording solid rental increases in 2014 and further growth expected in 2015. The most encouraging trend is the rebound in some of the peripheral markets, Ireland and parts of Southern Europe, with Dublin and Madrid in particular recording solid rental increases in 2014 and further growth expected in 2015. The most encouraging trend is the rebound in some of the peripheral markets, Ireland and parts of Southern Europe, with Dublin and Madrid in particular recording solid rental increases in 2014 and further growth expected in 2015.
Read MoreEurope's secondary cities rise in popularity
Investors are continuing to move into secondary assets and recovering markets as a way of accessing better returns, according to a new report.
Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2015, published jointly by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PwC, found a surge in popularity for real estate investment opportunities in a number of cities that were hit particularly hard during the last market downturn.
Madrid was up 16 positions, Athens up 23 positions and Lisbon was up 17 positions. Birmingham rose 14 positions, while Amsterdam rose 17 positions.
Read MoreUBS to launch European debt fund
UBS Global Asset Management is to launch a senior debt fund to invest in Europe targeting €500 million to €600 million of equity.
The fund will be a follow on to its UBS Participating Real Estate Mortgage Fund I (PREMF I), through which it invests only in the UK.
Despite dramatically reduced margins for European real estate lending over the past year, fund managers and investors are still seeing returns as being strong relative to bond and gilt rates.
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