The lone bank in this mega-development nicknamed "Manhattan" closed two years ago and most storefronts are bricked up. Apartments galore are for sale here and prices are plunging.
Towering apartment blocks, complete with swimming pools and playgrounds, loom over empty streets, weed-filled lots and gaping excavation pits. The lone bank in this mega-development nicknamed "Manhattan" closed two years ago and most storefronts are bricked up.
Apartments galore are for sale here and prices are plunging.
More than 13,000 apartments were supposed to go up to create a mini-city for 30,000 people just 45 minutes outside of Madrid. But only 5,100 were built, many are uninhabited and regular Spaniards who bought them as investments are now competing to offload them for huge losses.
Spain's real estate crash and economic implosion have turned what was supposed to become a vibrant suburban paradise for young Spanish couples and their children into one of the most visible monuments of the country's boom gone bust. Such modern-day ghost towns have become a familiar part of the Spanish landscape, abandoned shells left to slowly decay.
The number of foreclosure proceedings skyrocketed during the economic crisis. Nearly 530,000 were granted by courts from 2008 through September of 2011, most to banks taking homes, housing developments and vast tracts of land for residential and commercial real estate projects that may never become reality.
The banks were ordered this month by the recently elected center-right government to set aside billions of additional euros to cover these toxic real estate assets valued at euro175 billion ($230 billion) just as Spain teeters on the edge of what could be a lengthy recession.
Experts say the government's new provisions for real estate holdings will almost certainly prompt the banks to sell holdings at firesale prices, forcing property values down much more than the 22 percent that they have dropped since the financial crisis hit Europe in 2008.
In Sesena and other ghost developments around Spain, some banks are already trying to unload finished apartments at discounts of up to 50 percent of their original prices. But that's hurting untold numbers of Spaniards who invested savings and took out big loans to buy property they thought they'd be able to sell for more money or rent.
Satellite cities that never ended up with populations aren't Spain's only problem. Around Madrid and across the country, there are vast subdivisions carved out of farmland complete with paved roads and streetlights but only weeds where houses were supposed to be built. Half-built apartment buildings stand idle in suburbs rich and poor.
With unemployment at a eurozone high of 23 percent, there are simply fewer buyers -- and young Spaniards are increasingly trying to find work abroad. In December alone, sales were down 25.3 percent compared to the same month in 2010, the government reported Friday.:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.
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