Half of Spain’s Estate Agents Shut Down

This has the ring of urban myth, but the number is so huge it seems worth repeating: API, the trade association for Spanish property agents, is reporting that 40,000 estate agents—half the estate agents in the country—closed down last year, in the wake of the slowdown in the market. As a result, it is believed that as many as 100,000 property agents lost their jobs last year.

Santander has sold its headquarters near Madrid to Propinvest

The bank said total sales from the portfolio had reached €4.4bn. The bank had initially valued the real estate assets at €4bn, suggesting the Spanish property market is still holding its value in spite of well-publicised issues at developers such as Colonial.

Spanish real estate agencies folding

Half of Spain's real estate agencies have folded in the past year due to a slowdown in the once-booming building sector, an industry association says.

Of 80,000 that operated at the beginning of 2007, only around 40,000 have survived and some 100,000 employees lost their jobs, according to the Superior Council of Real Estate Agents, a nationwide grouping.

Fall in Spanish builders overdone

(Reuters) - Fears of a Spanish property meltdown have knocked shares in the country's big builders in recent months, but stocks are unlikely to bounce back in the short term despite their limited exposure to real estate.

Yet analysts say Spain's major builders have been punished by association, despite having built a major presence in non-cyclical sectors such as power generation and having geographically diversified into regions like Eastern Europe.

Top Spanish estate agency hit by slump

Viva Estates, one of the largest estate agents on Spain's Costa del Sol, has closed all but one of its offices, the latest victim of the downtown in the country's real-estate sector. The company, which sells flats and homes to a mainly British, German and Irish clientele, has shut 13 offices and now operates only out of its main office in Marbella.

It comes after the dramatic slide of Inmobiliaria Colonial SA, the third biggest real-estate company, last month. The president, Luis Portillo, was forced out after a share-price fall of 61.37 per cent in six months.

Colonial of Spain Declines After Equity-Swap Sales

Inmobiliaria Colonial SA, Spain's third-largest real estate company, fell for a third day in Madrid trading after equity-swap contracts led to additional share sales.

The stock declined 13 percent to 1.63 euros, its lowest since March 2006. That cut Barcelona-based Colonial's market value to 2.7 billion euros ($4 billion.)

``The drop in share price has triggered a dumping of the stock by the banks that backed the equity swaps,'' said Athena Ko, a real estate specialist at UBS AG in London.

Abertis buys Colonial properties for 202 mln euros

MADRID, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Spanish infrastructure firm Abertis (ABE.MC: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it had agreed to pay 201.6 million euros ($296.7 million) for logistics facilities owned by real estate company Colonial.

The purchase follows an almost 40 percent fall in Colonial's stock price late last week, and the resignation of its chairman last week, amid fears one of Spain's largest real estate firms faced problems at the end of a real estate boom.