• According to Round Robin, 15,000 housing auctions will be held in Spain this year.
• The increase is a consequence of the backlog that has occurred in the courts due to the pandemic.

Madrid 13 January 2022 Housing auctions will rise by 17% in 2022 to reach 15,000, according to the report recently published by Round Robin Inversiones, the leading firm in the purchase and management of real estate assets through auctions in Spain

The Round Robin report highlights as the main cause of this increase the fact that 2022 will see the resolution of much of the so-called “COVID backlog”, which caused a significant delay in the processing of foreclosures and auctions, due to the standstill of the courts during the toughest months of the pandemic.

In fact, 2020 showed a significant decrease in the number of foreclosures and auctions. Real estate foreclosures of legal entities fell by more than 50% compared to 2019, from 20,106 to 9,456; while total housing auctions declined by 23%.

To contextualise these figures, it is important to note that according to Round Robin estimates, 33% of home foreclosures result in judicial auctions.

The so-called “COVID backlog” began to improve in the second quarter of 2021 where 5,887 home foreclosures were recorded (253.2% more than in the same period the previous year). Meanwhile, the number of auctions reached 12,819 in 2021, compared to 10,442 in 2020.

A trend that will continue

Although a large part of the situation will be restored this year, in 2023 we will still see the last strains of COVID’s impact on court operations. As Guillermo Garcia-Mauriño, CEO de Round Robin recognises: “It will still take some time to restore the situation, since we must consider that it usually takes about 3 years from the time a foreclosure occurs until the auction takes place”.

“In 2023 we could therefore reach a similar number of auctions as in 2022 (15,000 per year). While in 2024 we will reach 17,400, as we will begin to see, many assets will be auctioned to pay off the debts that companies and individuals have acquired with their creditors during the pandemic,” adds the officer.