As the dust settles on Spain’s collapsed property market, the biggest players left are the country’s banks, which have acquired the assets of indebted construction companies, along with more than 172,000 homes repossessed after their owners failed to meet mortgage payments.

In a bid to turn this vast pile of bricks and mortar into cash, last year several leading banks set up websites offering properties for sale at considerable discounts.  Spanish banks already had some €50 billion in assorted property assets at the height of the boom, but continued investing well into 2008, lending around €325 billion to property developers between 2006 and 2008, as well as spending more than €100 billion on land for development.

With the country’s housing market stagnant, in part due to banks’ lack of liquidity, a growing chorus of voices are calling for the banks to shed part of their vast property portfolio in a bid to pump some money into the system.  Banco Santander’s Altamira property website offers only new properties to buy, or to rent with a buy option; but the other main banks are selling second-hand properties, garages, shops, storage space, and land. 

Altamira was set up in 2009, and has already sold some 1,700 properties, with a further 1,800 still for sale. Their total worth, with discounts of up to 50 percent on their original price, is around €380 million. The cheapest, a 43-square meter apartment in the small Andalusian town of Don Benito, is going for €53,000, while the asking price for a 731 square meter house in the wealthy Barcelona dormitory town of Sant Cugat is €1.5 million.

Most of the properties belong directly to Santander, while others belong to real estate developers that borrowed money from the bank as part of a deal with the Spanish Association of Promoters and Constructors of Spain (APCE). The latter are being sold at 20 percent less than the asking price.  As well as new homes, Banesto, which has close links to Santander — its president is Ana Patricia Botín, daughter of Santander’s founder — is also offering properties that it has repossessed from people unable to meet their mortgage repayments. 

The bank took over the debts of leading property company Reyal Urbis two years ago, paying €315 million for several of Reyal’s real estate developments.  It has so far sold 1,250 homes, netting €150 million. Its website has a further 1,500 properties that will likely bring it in something like  180 million.

Not to be outdone, Banco Sabadell last year sold almost 5,000 properties for around ¤800 million, most of them belonging to property companies unable to meet their debt repayments.  The bank hopes to sell around 6,200 new homes this year, most of them in Catalonia.

BBVA has already sold off 20 percent of its property portfolio, but still has €2.7 billion tied up in real estate developments. It is offering bargains such as a 45-square-meter apartment in the Mediterranean city of Alicante for €60,000, with other homes above the €500,000 mark.

A garage in San Sebastián’s smart Paseo de Francia can be had for €128,000. The country’s 50 or so savings banks, or cajas, invested heavily in property during the boom years, and many have now found themselves overstretched financially.  Some have had to be bailed out, but they are still reluctant to sell off their overpriced assets at a discount, despite setting up websites in a bid to attract would-be buyers.

Caixa Catalunya has so far sold around 1,150 apartments, netting €285 million, and has rented out some 3,000 properties.  It still has around 4,000 properties on its books, with around 300 on sale through its website at under €100,000.  The banks’ control of the property market has sparked complaints from APCE, whose president José Manuel Galindo has accused of undercutting his members by offering discounts of around 40 percent on average, along with no money down, 100-percent mortgages payable over 40 years.