Foreclosures fell 11.6% in Q1
The number of evictions carried out between January and March this year represented an annual decrease of 11.6%, with 16,688 evictions performed across the country.
The number represents the biggest fall since the first quarter of 2014 when the historical data series began.
Location
The number of foreclosures fell in 14 of the country’s 17 regions, with significant falls in Cantabria, Basque Country and Madrid, each seeing falls of more than 20%.
Foreclosures in Catalonia accounted for 22.2% of the national total with 3,704 actions, making it the region with the most foreclosures in the first quarter of the year.
Valencia and Andalusia were the next two in terms of the number of evictions, with 2,658 and 2,554 actions, respectively. Cumulatively, Catalonia, Valencia and Andalusia accounted for over half of all foreclosures across Spain (53.5%) in Q1.
The Basque Country was the only community to see an increase in foreclosures in Q1, going from 176 in 2015 to 202 this year, an increase of 14.8%.
Just over a quarter of all proceedings initiated in Q1 were in Andalusia, with 3,826, representing 27% of the total, followed by Catalonia with 3,079, and Valencia with 1,845.
Reason for Action
More than half of all evictions in Q1 (9,081, 54.4%) were due to non-payment of rent, while 6,971 (41.8%) were due to non-payment of mortgage, and the remaining 636 were due to “other causes”.
The number evicted for non-payment of rent registered an annual decrease of 8.4%, while those evicted for non-payment of mortgage fell by 14.8%.
The total number of foreclosure actions started in Q1 this year amounted to 14,175, representing a decrease of 29.8% when compared to those presented in the first quarter of 2015. This is the lowest number of foreclosures presented in a first quarter since 2008 when 13,487 procedures were initiated.
