Published January 10th, 2010 by Mickey
Spanish real estate developers build their future in Latin America
During the past five years, Spain’s real estate market has undergone an unprecedented boom that, nevertheless, has begun to take a toll on companies in that sector. The anticipated slowdown of business at home has begun, and it promises to go further. That is why many business people from Spain have decided to cross the Atlantic and try to repeat on the other side of the ocean the successes and high profits they enjoyed at home.
Fadesa, Grupo San José, OHL, Grupo Mall, Lar, Sotogrande, Salvago and Anida (the real estate arm of BBVA bank) are the vanguard of this trend, Spanish companies that have laid the cornerstones for their operations in Latin America. Many other companies will arrive, as was revealed at the latest SIMA, the most important real estate conference in Spain, which took place in Madrid in May. Fully 17% of the properties marketed at SIMA were from outside Spain. Most of those were in Latin America. Spanish companies are now the second largest investors in that region.
Are we dealing with a new real estate boom? “The boom is in its early stages. It seems that the warming up process will be a gradual one, and it will depend on how long-term demand reacts to it,” notes Miguel Hernández, director of the advanced program for real estate management at the Instituto de Empresa business school. In his view, “Spanish developers are investing in Latin America for three reasons: The exhaustion of the Spanish real estate market; the enormous liquidity that has been generated in recent years; and the Latin American region’s economic stability and demographic potential.”
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