Costa del Sol's biggest estate agents has filed for voluntary insolvency has deepened the gloom over southern Spain's property market. Viva Estates was one of the area's biggest success stories. It was set up ten years ago by an Englishman, Chris McCarthy, using the cricketer Ian Botham to raise its profile and within a few years operated from 15 offices. In the past 12 months, all but one of those offices has closed and more than 100 staff have lost their jobs.
Half the 80,000 estate agents in business at the beginning of 2007 were closed by the end of the year. Demand for cement is at its lowest level in 11 years as developers stop building. And yet by the end of this year, there will be an estimated one million unsold properties on the Spanish market. Another two million lie empty. Add to that the global credit crunch and mounting Spanish interest rates, and as one real estate agent put it this week: "It's like the UK situation on steroids."
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