April 4 (Bloomberg) -- Thanks to Spain's slumping property market, house buyers are as popular as movie stars and they can cause even more excitement.
Reporters outnumbered bidders as lot No. 1 hit the slate in Europe's first ``Dutch auction'' for real estate last weekend in Madrid. Of 216 lots, 194 were withdrawn when they weren't purchased at the reserve price. One man, investor Manuel Sainz, bought almost half of everything sold.
``Next stop Hollywood!'' laughed Sainz, head of property company Las Terrazas de San Blas SA, as he fought off the press after buying 10 properties at discounts of as much as 30 percent.
