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Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Madrid's ghost towns revived as Spain's housing crisis escalates
By Corina Pons and Charlie Devereux SESENA, Spain (Reuters) - The first call came two minutes after estate agent Segis Gomez posted a listing in Sesena, a development near Madrid that gained notoriety as one of the so-called "ghost towns" created when Spain's property bubble burst in 2008. Half-built and half-empty for more than a decade, these days the squatters have gone from this development 40 km (24.85 miles) south of the capital and middle-class families, driven out of the city centre by an acute housing crisis, are moving in. Construction, meanwhile, has restarted. Demand is so strong in Sesena that Gomez has a waiting list of 70 people for each property. Property prices have recovered their original value after plunging to less than half during the crisis, he said. As anger grows over the cost of housing in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made providing affordable homes one of his main goals - even as he encourages population growth through immigration. The size of the challenge is clear in Madrid, which grew by 140,000 people in 2024, but only registered permits to build 20,000 new homes. Short supply is being exacerbated by a boom in holiday lets, record migration and onerous planning laws. "The problem is that we can't match supply and demand quickly enough. So prices go up, or people have to trade price for distance," said Carles Vergara, a real estate professor at IESE Business School in Madrid. Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region and still lacks good transport links to the capital and public services, which caused homebuyers to reject it in the past. Its founder and original developer, Francisco Hernando, had a vision of 13,000 affordable apartments with gardens and swimming pools on the Spanish plain where author Cervantes set his best-known work Don Quixote, but the project became a byword for speculative greed and corruption. Only 5,000 homes ended up being built. Hernando, who began his project in 2004, failed to tell homebuyers he hadn't secured access to water or that the town had no public transport or schools. Hernando died in 2020. When the market collapsed, initial investors saw the value of their property plummet, while many homes ended up in the hands of banks. MADRID'S EXPANSION Today, Sesena teems with life as parents drop children at its three schools, drink coffee in its bars and visit recently-opened gyms and pharmacies. Impact Homes, a developer, is constructing 156 one-to-four bedroom apartments it expects to complete this year. Next door, another building has already pre-sold 49% of its units, it said in an email. "Sesena is at 100%," said Jaime de Hita, the town's mayor. Nestor Delgado moved to Sesena in 2021 with his family from Carabanchel in south Madrid because an apartment cost 20% less to rent. In May, he bought a house with his wife for 240,000 euros ($272,808). "We chose (Sesena) because we can afford it," Delgado, 34, said. The trade-off is rising before 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) to be among the first in the queue for the 6.30 a.m. bus to Madrid to arrive at his construction job by 8 a.m. or face a an hour's wait for the next bus. BACK TO LIFE Other ghost towns are also coming back to life. Valdeluz, a development 75 km east of Madrid originally envisioned to house 30,000 people, was abandoned a quarter of the way through when the property bubble burst. Mayor Enrique Quintana told Reuters the town's 6,000-strong population is swelling with people from Madrid and could expand by 50% in the next four years. A development on the edge of the village of Bernuy de Porreros, 100 km north of Madrid, which as recently as six years ago was mostly abandoned, is now bustling with activity as handymen put the finishing touches on homes. Lucia, a 37-year-old state employee, bought her house in April. Her daily commute to Madrid involves a 15-minute drive to the train station in Segovia and 28 minutes on the high-speed train, which costs her 48 euros for 30 trips thanks to a frequent traveller discount. The development began to revive when Spain's so-called bad bank Sareb, which was set up to take bad loans from the financial crisis, in 2021 began selling the homes for as little as 97,000 euros. Four years later, one property was resold for double that, said resident Nuria Alvarez. Until recently a relatively compact city, Madrid is on the way to becoming a metropolis like Paris or London, with commuter zones stretching beyond its administrative boundaries, said Jose Maria Garcia, the regional government's deputy housing minister. The metropolitan area's population of 7 million will grow by a million in the next 15 years, the government estimates. Madrid has a deficit of 80,000-100,000 homes that's growing by 15,000 homes a year and plans to build 110,000 homes by 2028, Garcia said. Sesena, meanwhile, is once again dreaming big. Its mayor, de Hita, said the town is securing permits for a new project dubbed Parquijote, with a proposed investment of 2.3 billion euros to build a logistics park that will create local jobs, along with 2,200 homes. It's no quixotic fantasy, de Hita said. "This time we have learned from what happened," he said. "It is fundamental that we look for growth by learning from the past." ($1 = 0.8797 euros) Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Zara founder Ortega buys Barcelona office building for $283 million, sources say
By Corina Pons MADRID (Reuters) -Zara founder Amancio Ortega has bought an office building in Barcelona from Blackstone for 250 million euros ($283 million), two sources familiar with the transaction said on Friday. Blackstone sold the 28,000-square-metre building on Avenida Diagonal, currently rented by the Spanish editorial business Planeta, to Ortega's investment vehicle Pontegadea, the sources said. Pontegadea and Blackstone did not comment about the agreement. Pontegadea, which owns more than $20 billion of real estate assets, has invested in several office towers and luxury buildings in Europe and North America. It has also diversified its portfolio by buying energy and logistics assets. Ortega controls 59.29% of Zara-owner Inditex through Pontegadea Inversiones and Partler Participaciones. ($1 = 0.8826 euros) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
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Ferrovial highway revenue boosted by pre-tariff US traffic
By Corina Pons MADRID (Reuters) - Motorway and airports operator Ferrovial had a surprise first-quarter revenue bump from freight traffic on toll roads in the United States and Canada, probably related to imports in anticipation of sweeping U.S. tariffs, its CFO told Reuters. The Spanish company's revenue surge despite adverse winter weather follows a wider trend of increased commercial activity at U.S. ports and roads that preceded U.S. President Donald Trump's April 1 announcement of new tariffs, many of which remain suspended. Ferrovial's first-quarter revenue from its toll road business in North America rose 14%, it reported in quarterly results last week, demonstrating growth in a country where it plans to concentrate its investments in the coming years. "We were the first to be surprised that (the results) were even better than expected," Chief Financial Officer Ernesto Lopez told Reuters late on Tuesday. "There has been quite a lot of activity at peak times, especially a higher percentage of heavy or commercial vehicles," Lopez said, adding that public data pointed to traffic on toll roads remaining above last year's levels. Ferrovial operates toll roads in the U.S. and the 407 highway in the Canadian province of Ontario bordering the United States. It also plans to submit bids for between four and six new motorway construction projects in California, Tennessee and North Carolina. Lopez said the increased commercial traffic on highways could be influenced by a higher volume of goods crossing the Mexican border into one of its managed lanes in Texas. In North Carolina, traffic also received a boost from more companies ordering employees back to the office. The U.S. trade deficit in goods widened to a record high in March as businesses ramped up efforts to bring in merchandise and pre-empt some of the tariffs impact, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau. Imports of goods to the U.S. rose to a record high of $342.7 billion, driven by consumer goods and cars. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ferrovial highway revenue boosted by pre-tariff US traffic
By Corina Pons MADRID (Reuters) - Motorway and airports operator Ferrovial had a surprise first-quarter revenue bump from freight traffic on toll roads in the United States and Canada, probably related to imports in anticipation of sweeping U.S. tariffs, its CFO told Reuters. The Spanish company's revenue surge despite adverse winter weather follows a wider trend of increased commercial activity at U.S. ports and roads that preceded U.S. President Donald Trump's April 1 announcement of new tariffs, many of which remain suspended. Ferrovial's first-quarter revenue from its toll road business in North America rose 14%, it reported in quarterly results last week, demonstrating growth in a country where it plans to concentrate its investments in the coming years. "We were the first to be surprised that (the results) were even better than expected," Chief Financial Officer Ernesto Lopez told Reuters late on Tuesday. "There has been quite a lot of activity at peak times, especially a higher percentage of heavy or commercial vehicles," Lopez said, adding that public data pointed to traffic on toll roads remaining above last year's levels. Ferrovial operates toll roads in the U.S. and the 407 highway in the Canadian province of Ontario bordering the United States. It also plans to submit bids for between four and six new motorway construction projects in California, Tennessee and North Carolina. Lopez said the increased commercial traffic on highways could be influenced by a higher volume of goods crossing the Mexican border into one of its managed lanes in Texas. In North Carolina, traffic also received a boost from more companies ordering employees back to the office. The U.S. trade deficit in goods widened to a record high in March as businesses ramped up efforts to bring in merchandise and pre-empt some of the tariffs impact, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau. Imports of goods to the U.S. rose to a record high of $342.7 billion, driven by consumer goods and cars. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
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US buyers pay highest prices to snap up Spanish property
By Corina Pons MADRID (Reuters) - Deep-pocketed U.S. citizens paid the highest prices for Spanish property of all foreign buyers last year, while making the most purchases in some central and northern regions, data showed on Thursday, exacerbating a housing crisis in the country. Unlike northern Europeans who have long sought refuge from harsher climates on Spain's sunny beaches and plains, U.S. investors only started arriving en masse recently, some driven by business considerations such as a strong dollar, others by concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump's populist policies. The number of property deals involving Americans was more than four times higher than five years ago, during Trump's first term, with their share doubling to 2% of the total 139,102 transactions by non-resident foreigners, based on statistics on property deals from Spain's General Council of Notaries, which oversees property registries. That was still well behind Britons, who remain the biggest foreign buyers although their share of house purchases dropped to 8.5% from 12% over the same period. The average price they paid per square metre was nearly 30% lower than the 3,390 euros ($3,732) paid by Americans. Foreign buyers, who account for 20% of all residential purchases in Spain, on average paid 2,362 euros per square metre, while Spanish nationals paid 1,713 euros in the second half of the year. While Spanish house prices are generally lower than in wealthier central and northern Europe, they jumped 11% last year, the second-biggest rise in the European Union after neighbouring Portugal, Eurostat data showed. With a housing crisis already sparking protests against rising rents and property prices, the government has threatened to impose a tax of up to 100% on property purchases for non-EU buyers, although experts doubt it will stem price increases originating from a low supply of housing. Spain has already scrapped its so-called "golden visa" scheme granting residency rights to foreigners making large property investments. Many Americans have taken advantage of the scheme in recent years but its demise is unlikely to stop them buying as long as they consider the prices attractive. "Americans see that Madrid capital property prices still have a significant growth potential versus other European cities," said Luis Valdes, director of Residential Sales Advisory at Colliers, citing Spain's southern Costa del Sol as another example. Francisco Cerezo, partner at U.S. law firm DLA Piper who does cross-border business in the region, said U.S. citizens of Latin American heritage were particularly keen on Spanish property, attracted by the familiar language and culture, as well as prices and climate. "In that sense, it does evoke parallels to the investment patterns we've seen in Florida over the years," he said. ($1 = 0.9083 euros) Sign in to access your portfolio
