How we work with properties
The easiest way to sell off the 107,446 properties we acquired in 2012 and 2013 would have been by selling them directly, at the first real estate market price we were offered. But Sareb chose a more committed method: an orderly, transparent sale and one which avoided flooding the real estate asset market. This is why we were given a limited period of time in which to manage and sell the entire portfolio.
What are our options for selling a property?
Sareb’s properties for sale
Almost all the residential properties are sold in the retail market through four real estate asset management companies or servicers: Altamira Asset Management, Haya Real Estate, Servihabitat and Solvia. It is a form of outsourcing that enables us to gain efficiency. We focus on asset management and we entrust the work of selling them to specialist companies, covering the entire country thanks to their extensive sales network.
Sareb real estate promotion
Although our activity focuses on divesting assets, which involves selling our properties, we try to do so in a manner that enables us to generate more income, as we have to pay back the State-guaranteed debt. Sareb’s properties are diverse and have different characteristics. We have houses, garages, storerooms, retail units, offices, industrial warehouses and land. Some are completed and others are not.
Before selling these properties, in order realise their full potential, we resume the construction work on unfinished developments and we even begin new developments on some plots included in our portfolio. Therefore, in the medium term, with their final sale, we will obtain higher returns.
Árqura Homes: Sareb’s new project
With the aim of obtaining higher returns from our land and unfinished developments, in 2019, we created the development company Árqura Homes. It was established as a joint venture between Sareb and the fund Värde Partners. Árqura Homes is not a standard residential development company, but rather a Bank Assets Fund (FAB), where Sareb owns 90% of the capital and Värde Partners the remaining 10%.
Our planned investment in Árqura Homes is €2,238 million until 2027, to build developments in almost every region of Spain. And we plan to develop a total of 17,095 new houses, which we shall sell through Aelca. Its website contains the entire catalogue of Sareb’s new developments.
The properties included in Sareb’s social rented housing programme
Since 2013, we have been developing an affordable rental housing policy to meet the needs of vulnerable groups. In total, we have reserved a pool of 15,000 properties for social purposes in collaboration with the Public Administration, to alleviate the problem of affordable housing in Spain. To date, we have assigned around three thousand properties to autonomous communities and to town councils. During this time, we have established that the best way to contribute to the creation of a reserve of social housing in Spain is to do so in collaboration with the administrations.