The Austrian Market on Foreclosure Sales of Real Estate – Development 2007-2013 and Future Trends

The annual volume of foreclosure sale of real estate represents only a rather small share (a few percent) of the total annual sales volume of real estate in Austria. On the other hand, the availability and reliability of detailed information on the foreclosure sub-market is much more pronounced. Thus, the detailed analysis of this sub-market offers a rather unique perspective on market transparency, which even allows for drawing some conclusions on the development of the “free” market.The information available on the foreclosure sub-market is i.a. characterized by the following facts:• All real estate property subject to foreclosure has been valued by court approved experts.• Specific market aspects are considered by applying appropriate market adaption factors. • The highest bid reflects the actual price level at which buyers are willing to enter a given market segment.Since September 2007, SmartFacts Data Services collects - without any gap - all available data on foreclosure of real estate. Significant effort is undertaken to categorize and structure the data properly, e.g. each property is classified according to a list of currently 54 property sub-types, thus forming a sound base for the fine-grained analysis of data. The data base holds all relevant descriptive data on the property (up to about 70 attributes such as size, age and use of property), as well as the valuation report(s). All legally relevant data, the history of each foreclosure and all information on values – minimum bid, vadium (bid bond), appraisal value, etc. - is checked, analyzed and recorded. In case of a successful foreclosure sale, the buyer, the final bid and the relevant dates are recorded additionally.The standard dimensions available for analyszing these data are time, the geographic/political structure, the property type, the creditor and the buyer. Of course, all other attributes available can be used as additional criteria for data selection and analysis.The paper will report on the development of the Austrian foreclosure market within the past years regarding the market size and its structure. For a given region, a more detailed picture will be shown including typical indications on success and duration of the foreclosure process. Typical examples on successful applications of the data-base in the fields of valuation, risk management and optimization of the work-out of non-performing loans will demonstrate the capabilities of the data-base.