Buying a house in Spain these days often involves talking to a bank about more than just a mortgage. More than a year of corporate failures in the sector, followed by rising non-performing loan rates among mortgage-holders has converted the country’s lending institutions into its biggest property owners.

Some estimates put the total value of property on banks’ books above €25bn ($35bn), dwarfing, in real terms, the amount accumulated during Spain’s last property crisis in the early 1990s. The six biggest lenders alone hold residential assets worth more than €9bn, according to their first-quarter accounts.