Mortgage forecloses falls in Spain

 The level of mortgage foreclosure in Spain - the forced sale of properties because of defaults on mortgage payments - fell in the first quarter by 5.2% to 30,952 (compared with the first quarter of 2014). Of this total, only 8,802 were owners’ main residences (a decline of almost 7%) and the foreclosures related to 0.048% of all residential properties in Spain. In the Balearics, the number was 600, 353 of them for homes.
Contained within the Spanish figure for foreclosure were 57.5% for homes, while over 30% of foreclosures were for garages, offices, warehouses, shops, bars or restaurants, among others. Of homes, the great majority of foreclosures (87%) in the first quarter related to used houses. There has been a steady fall in the number of defaults for new homes over the past year: down by almost 37%.
In terms of when a mortgage was taken out, 59% of the first-quarter foreclosures were for mortgage arrangements entered into during the period 2005 to 2008. The region of Spain with the greatest number of foreclosures was Andalusia - 8,948 - followed by Catalonia (5,168) and Valencia (4.852).
The lowest numbers were in La Rioja (158), the Basque Country (156) and Cantabria, the lowest of all with 151.