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Spain's Banks Enter the Real Estate Market Lots of noise, little substance dariointernet.com Summary : 2009 The Quality of journalism in Spain is rather low if compared with that of journalism in the United States. For example, recently Spain's printed media published front page articles announcing with maximum flair and excitement that Spain's banks have entered the Real Estate Market offering apartments with major discounts . I would think a journalist before writing such garbage, should go and check if what the banks claim is actually happening! But since they didn't bother to check, I did it myself. What I found out was that these Banks overly exaggerate their claims and there is very little truth to their claims. In any case, even if there are discounts , they are on housing that is at a price range that is out of the reach of the typical Spaniard. So they are not solving anyones problems by giving a 30% discount on a property priced at 290,000 Euros....

Ahora los bancos no trabajan Hipotecas en España Suddenly Banks in Spain have moved away from the Mortgage bussiness dariointernet.com Summary : Amazing story about banks and the mortgage business in Spain [English] Over a year ago long before this economic crisis, which has dragged the Dow down to the 7,500 level, I did some homework and shopped around for mortgages here in Spain. Imagine all the work and paperwork. Eventually I was pre-approved for 3 of them that I liked. However, I never took any and abandoned my pursuit for any apartment purchase. But I did make a nice list of the banks with the direct phone numbers of the people that actually evaluate the applications. You know, getting those direct numbers is the hard part, because calling the Free customer service number just gets you to some clueless remote tele-operator sitting in Santo Domingo who doesn't even know where Madrid is located. Now get this...! I call one of those desired "direct" numbers...