We must also remember that real estate is just houses, buildings and land that have fundamental economic, social and environmental functions, only some of whose value appears in the accountants’ books. We need to account for all these functions more clearly.
While growth prospects have deteriorated too, and consequently weak aggregate demand may be the dominant problem faced by euro area SMEs right now, impaired access to finance by the corporate sector in a number of euro area countries is clearly a problem that cannot be neglected and will come to the forefront when aggregate demand recovers.