Rent-to-Buy Scheme Proving Popular, Says CAM Bank

By On January 29, 2011 · Leave a Comment

CAM Bank (Caja Mediterraneo), Spain’s fifth-largest financial institution, is selling large numbers of repossessed properties to UK and Russian buyers and seeing success with its rent-to-buy programme.

Speaking exclusively to OPP this week, CAM’s international commercial director Alfredo Milla said “the rent-to-buy product is fairly new and innovative from our point of view, and people like the idea of renting a villa or apartment in Spain from our books for two years before having to consider the option of buying the property.”

The service allows renters the option to experience the area, its schools and its shops before making a big commitment, head of business development Andy Lister Cope told OPP.

CAM is proud of its comprehensive “key ready” approach to shifting repossessed property and the bank is seeing success.

“We sold nearly 4,800 properties in 2010” says Milla, “with more than 480 going to international buyers. We are definitely selling repossessed properties in large numbers now.”

CAM avoids big bulk deals because “the buyers in this sector want discounts of 50% and above, and that is far too much,” says Milla. He is looking instead for “normal’ buyers.

“We can offer mortgages with 25 to 30 year terms, sometimes up to 40 years, with a 90% loan-to-value maximum and interest rates only 0.9% above Euribor. And people like the rent-to-buy deal where the two years of monthly rental payments are used as a discount and taken off the purchase price if they decide to go ahead and buy at the end of the rental period,” Milla says.

CAM sold more overseas properties to UK buyers in 2010 than it did to any other country. Russians buyers came second on the list, followed by buyers from the Benelux countries.

“We give a full service” says Andy Lister Cope. “We sell, we do after-sales and we have all the infrastructure in place. We have the keys to every property ready for inspection, and we take selling these properties seriously.”

To this end, the bank has signed an exclusive Spanish overseas property sales partnership deal in the UK with agency Connells and has gone into “collaborative partnerships” with TUI and the Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank.

Cope dislikes the reputation that some Spanish institutions have created during the crisis. “If you get a client who wants to buy from us,” he says, “we will have all the details ready to complete. All our properties are fully owned by CAM and registered in the name of the bank, all of the paperwork will be in place, and nothing will be offered for sale on illegal land.”

Story from OPP

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  • apartment, CAM bank, euribor, holiday homes, interest rates, mortgages, rent-to-buy, repossessed properties, spain property

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