The Economist – house prices in Spain still 55% overvalued

The Economist magazine has claimed that houses in Spain remain 55% overvalued. It uses the ratio of house prices to rents to make the claim. Using 1990 as a reference, they claim that the over-valuation is still 24%, and say the adjustment needed in Spain is the largest in the main economies. The report considers that house prices here will continue to fall, as they will also do in France and Ireland, claiming that the recent falls have not yet reached bottom.
Read The Economist article – here

Car sales in Spain fell by 18% over 2009, taking the number, 952,772, down to levels last seen in 1995. The number comes despite the fact that 260,000 drivers took advantage of the Government car scrappage scheme, Plan 2000 E. The number comes from the car manufacturers association ANFAC and the dealers group GANVAM.

The amount of money being saved by Spanish families has reached an all-time high, according to data for the third quarter of last year from the National Statistics Institute. The recession is simply leading more people into savings, with the percentage of income saved now 14%, four points higher than a year ago.

Ten years ago European leaders undertook to do away with poverty on the continent by 2010, but latest numbers show 17% of the EU population still living in poverty. In 2008 the number in Spain was 20%. Poverty is considered by the EU when someone lives under the 60% level of the average income in their country. 2010 has been declared as the year to fight poverty, and a programme of events will be launched with a meeting of the European Commission in Madrid on January 21.

Spanish construction and services firm ACS, run by Real Madrid Chairman, Florentino Pérez, has purchased the US builder Picone for 92 million €. The US firm is a specialist in civil engineering and is considered one of the main companies in New York.

More than 70 Spaniards remain stranded in Marrakech after Easy Jet cancelled a flight from there to Madrid on Sunday. The group has been offered another flight, but not until next Friday or Saturday. 290 passengers on two flights were affected by the cancellations in total.
Meanwhile normality has returned to the airports on the Canary Islands after power problems led to delays on flights over the weekend.

And finally,
The continuing recession has led to a 10% average fall in spending in the New Year sales. Madrid and Cataluña are expected to see most shoppers in the hunt for a bargain, and the average spend in the sales per person this year has been estimated by the politicians to be 108 € per person. The sales started on January 2 in Madrid and Murcia, while other parts of the country will have to wait until after the Three Kings to find their bargains. (Via Original Source)

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