Backlog of home auctions growing by the day

Home auctions formally published on the website of the law workers’ fund, ETAA, are growing by the day, and are now at 3,050 against around 600 in early October.

The vast majority of auctions are announced by banks, which have set a target of around 15,000 property auctions for this year. Lenders assure that neither the auctions already announced nor those that are being planned concern borrowers’ main residences – instead they concern assets of borrowers with large real estate property.

Banks have been forced to reactivate the auctions measure after a long freeze due to pressure from the European Central Bank’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) to reduce nonperforming loans by 40 billion euros by the end of 2019.

The growing number of properties being announced for auction and the abstention of notaries from their duties – for six months now – are leading to a constant increase in the stock due to go under the hammer in the coming months. This is generating concern over whether the situation in the credit sector can revert to normal and whether the bad-loan reduction targets agreed with the SSM can actually be met.