Spain's real estate sector starting to hum

Madrid

SERGIO Berdion lived his whole life in Madrid until 2012, when Spain's real-estate collapse drove him to Chile in search of work. Last year, he came back.

The 36-year-old, who works as an intermediary between architects and building contractors, said: "Things are definitely better. I don't know if we'll ever get back to the boom days, but there's more and more work."

The pickup that has allowed him to return home is helping to pull Spain's economy out of its deepest hole in decades. …