During the presentation of the social rental program that the bad bank has in Catalonia, Torres explained that after the State took control of the company in May 2022, the firm has prioritized allocating housing to social rent for vulnerable families, who pay an income of less than 30% of their income, which is, on average, 200 euros per month.
This initiative, in addition to the social impact, "helps to balance the accounts, reduces the degradation of assets and neighborhood conflict", assured Pau Pérez de Acha, the director of the Sareb Social Housing area. "Adding people management to asset management has a positive impact on the accounts".
Pérez explained that the company has close to a hundred specialists working on the social rental program and invests an average of 4,000 euros in each home it manages to improve living conditions. In addition, it provides socio-employment support services to families, to help them obtain public aid and employment. Despite these expenses, the additional income from rents that the society obtains allow it to pay management expenses of the program, the IBI and the community of owners, so that "from losing 1,540 euros for each house we have empty we go on to earn 92 euros per year, an improvement of 1,632 euros per home in EBITDA (operating profit)".
The Sareb, Javier Torres explained, has 13,300 homes in different social rental programs, of which 54% are in Catalonia, with 7,000 units. In Spain as a whole, Sareb directly manages 6,000 rentals, while 1,980 are in homes leased in agreements to the autonomous communities; figures that in Catalonia are 3,201 and 1,540, respectively. In total, 28,000 people benefit from its social rental programs in Spain.
Sareb also has 3,400 homes where people "who are not in a vulnerable situation" reside and who do not wish to join the affordable rental program (for which they would pay a rent equivalent to a third of their income), and who are in the process of eviction. Of these properties, 1,658 are in Catalonia. According to Pérez, who avoided using the term occupation, the society succeeded in 80% of the cases in ending up leaving the property amicably (without police intervention), although he recalled that the judicial procedure lasts between nine months and three years.
Sareb was created in 2012 with the contribution of 50,781 million euros in properties and failed loans to promoters of the 24 rescued savings banks. After the sales of assets made in recent years, the firm acknowledged in June that the gross value of the assets on the balance sheet, of 26,324 million euros, is 44% higher than the market value, which is equivalent to a deterioration accumulated of 11,626 million euros, which will become losses when these properties are sold. "The more we sell, the more we lose", admitted Torres. The company sold 27,000 properties in 2022, 8,153 of which were homes, so with 2,361 million entered for sales, it had 1,506 million euros in losses.
Sareb still has a debt of 30,481 million euros, 40% less than it assumed in 2012, mainly with the State, which is lower than the value of the assets, and when it was created it was imposed a lapse of 15 years, so it would have to sell the assets and repay the debt in 2027.
Torres lost".
