RICS: Spanish mortgage approvals

Commenting on Spanish mortgage approvals data out this morning, Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist said: "Spanish mortgage approvals data for February released this morning rose for the third consecutive month. The year-on-year pace of decline in activity, meanwhile, eased from 37% to 28%. Unfortunately it would be premature to conclude from this better news flow that the worst is over for the housing market in Spain. The macro backdrop continues to deteriorate and this is being reflected in a dramatic worsening in the jobs market. Unemployment jumped to 17.4% during the first quarter of the year with more than 4 million people now out of work. Moreover, this process has further to run with any recovery in the economy likely to be muted until the middle of 2010. Against this backdrop, RICS believes that mortgage demand will remain under pressure and that this weak picture will be increasingly visible in the official house price indicators."