Often figures are difficult to figure out, as when the UK Government announces record inflation of 4.4 percent or when a UK bank or building society gives its take on house price rises/falls.
Everybody in the UK, fast running out of spending money, knows 4.4 percent is only a quarter of the true figure and the Property Registry houses price figures are history when they are announced and seldom match the “findings” of others.
True lies they may be, but where lies the truth?
www.Kyero.com the leading property portal in Spain has been critical of the house price movements as released by various government departments, banks and trade bodies. They claim their own monthly figures represent the most accurate readings.
But even Kyero’s stats pale beside those of the frontline troops, the TINSA army on patrol in the inner cities and the glossy urbanisations of the Costas.
Armed with tape measure, digital camera and military-style mapas they sally forth daily to take the property prices pulse of Spain. They have been enlisted by the country’s biggest valuation firm and they work mainly on behalf of the firm's owners, the 40-odd banks who belong to the Confederation of Spanish savings banks (CECA). They are thorough and accurate, measuring each room, drawing layouts of the building, noticing drainage and general condition and working out a cost per square metre base figure for later comparison.
The valuations they produce are based largely on the formula, number of square metres times the TINSA formula price per square metre, computed with the recorded sales prices and attributes of similar homes in the same vicinity
The images they take are warts and all, no waiting for a blue sky with fluffy clouds day with these pros. Then back to the office to produce a 24 page report and valuation on which the bank will make a mortgage offer, or more frequently nowadays, fix a repossession sale price.
Using their own data, TINSA HQ reported house prices across Spain fell 3.9 percent last month, marking the fifth successive month of falls in Europe’s biggest property market and steeper than the year on year figure TINSA posted in June.
Compare that with the official Spanish Housing Ministry quarterly report that insists house prices declined 0.3 percent between April and June, “marking the first fall since 1998”.
Statistics can be what you want them to be and how you present them, but with a “margin of error” this big, sellers are likely to side with the Government version and property buyers with TINSA…or maybe just lick a finger and hold it up to the wind to fix the figure - like UK estate agents used to do, when property boomed…
13 August 2008
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the problem with any statistical analysis of property prices in spain has always been the difference between the sales price and the price officially paid. 'black money' is more often than not included in any sale as seller and buyer look to wiggle out of some sales tax, i've previously worked as an agent and have seen from 5% right up to more than 50% of the sales price being paid in cash .... no official analysis is ever going to be accurate with this sort of activity taking place. Secondly, and I can also talk for where we were based in Granada, it is the seller who generally sets the price ... thereby making the playing field somewhat uneven when making a price comparison, in the past many owners would ask for silly prices that were often met by naive buyers for whom property still 'appeared' to be cheap compared to their homeland. Now that prices have risen to a comparitive level, buyers are more cagey and less likely to coffer cash as part of the deal .
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