Spanish mortgage crisis and accumulation of foreclosed housing by SAREB: a geographical approach

SAREB (Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria – Company for the Management of Assets proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System) has played a key role in the process of restructuring the Spanish banking system and managing the property assets of the banks since the bursting of the housing bubble. This company has concentrated the housing stock that the rescued banks had accumulated through foreclosures. As a result, the identification of the territorial patterns of its assets is key to understanding the spatial logics of the housing crisis in Spain. There are no publicly available data about the location of the housing stock in the hands of SAREB. For this reason, the study explores an alternative secondary source. The resulting map allowed the researchers to check the utility of this source and to carry out calculations of spatial correlation using indicators relating to the impact of the property boom in different municipalities. This made it possible to spatially correlate exposure to the hyperproduction of housing and the concentration of housing in the hands of SAREB as a result of mortgage foreclosures and to open a route towards a novel geographical reading of Spain's mortgage crisis.