Spain's housing sales falls by 8.6% in September

Housing sales in Spain fell by 8.6 percent in September when compared with the same month of 2012, the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported on Monday. The INE reported that the number of purchases registered totaled 23,808 in September, up 1.1 percent on a monthly basis. This is the first time housing sales increased on a monthly basis since 2009. In annual terms, however, housing sales have been declining for five consecutive months since May. The INE reported that sales of new houses in September decreased by 16.9 percent year on year to a total of 10,658 purchases, while sales of second-hand houses fell by 0.6 percent to 13,150 purchases. Meanwhile, 89.4 percent of the total purchases were non-subsidized houses, whose sales fell by 5.7 percent. Those of subsidized houses totaled 2,518 and suffered a fall of 27.8 percent. According to local media, the Spanish bad bank (SAREB) sold around 4,500 houses until mid-October as a part of its plan to earn around 933 million euros (1.249 billion U.S. dollars). The Spanish bad bank was created to separate toxic assets from healthy ones. It took a big proportion of assets from the real estate sector of Spain's housing bubble that burst in 2008, which helped reducing troubled debts within the Spanish banking system.