Balearics mortgaged to the hilt says report

THE Balearics and Catalonia are the areas in Spain registering the highest number of mortgaged properties for every 1'000 inhabitants, with 292.2 and 249.1 properties respectively. Extremadura has the least with only 120 mortgaged properties per 1'000 inhabitants. The National Statistics Institute yesterday released figures showing that in March, in the whole of Spain, a total of 73'171 dwellings in both town and country areas were mortgaged, 25.4 per cent more than in the same month last year. The capital sum involved registered at 7'634 million euros. The individual regions of Spain showing the highest borrowing figures per head of population, are the Balearics with 352.4 euros and La Rioja with 285.5, while Extremadura was the area registering the least debt with 77.1 euros per inhabitant, added INE, which has not provided further information on other Communities in Spain in this regard. In March this year, out of all the self-governing Communities, Catalonia and Andalucia showed the highest concentration of mortgaged properties with 40.4 per cent of the total - 15'800 and 13'808 respectively. This assumes borrowed capital of 1'727 and 1'223 million euros respectively. Following on behind these top figures comes Madrid which had 8'218 dwellings mortgaged during the same period to a value of 1'176 million euros, and Valencia with 7'527 mortgages and borrowed capital of 622 million. The Communities with the lowest borrowing figures during March were La Rioja with 681 mortgaged properties for a capital sum of 79 million euros; Navarra with 907 and 100 million; and Cantabria, 987 and 77 million. There are figures also for the self-governing Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa which have 241 and 9 mortgaged properties registered, respectively.