Santander 9 mth net profit down 66 pct on property writedowns

MADRID Oct 25 (Reuters) - The euro zone's biggest bank Santander on Thursday reported 9 month net profit of 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion), down 66 percent on the year ago period, as it wrote down 5 billion euros of losses on bad real estate investments in Spain.

The bank said it had now absorbed 90 percent of the government-enforced writedowns related to property assets.

Santander reported net interest income of 23 billion euros, up 7 percent on the year-ago period and in line with a Reuters polled forecast. ($1 = 0.7711 euros) (Reporting By Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Julien Toyer)