Not open for business

The chart on the left - also a permanent fixture in the right sidebar - shows the monthly number of residential mortgages registered in Spain as a percentage of actual house sales. It's our proxy measure of credit availability in the Spanish economy.

Calculating from the November mortgage report from the INE, this figure currently stands at 98.71%. Almost inconceivably, fewer mortgages than sales as banks shore up balance sheets by not lending money.

A five-year moratorium on the implementation of Basel III might be a thought.

----------------------------