The odds of a double-dip in Spanish property prices just shorter, judging by the house price index published by Tinsa, one of Spain’s leading appraisal company.
The annualised index fell 5% in September, compared to declines of 4.6% in August, and 4% in July. Up until then prices had been trending towards smaller declines, suggesting they might even make it into positive territory (on an annualised basis) before the end of the year. Now that looks like a pipe-dream.
Prices on the coast, where most holiday homes are located, took a real hit, down 8.7% in September (-4.9% in August). The Balearics and Canaries did better, down just 4.2%, an improvement on the -5.3% in August.
After the latest declines, prices on the coast are now down 25.7% at 1,924 €/m2 compared to their December 2007 peak of 2,590 €/m2.
Prices falls have accelerated in each of the last 3 months. The big question is why are price declines accelerating again, especially when the latest property sales figures show a strong rebound in transactions?
We have to keep in mind that it might be just a temporary anomaly lasting a few months after which prices return to an improving trend. You can never be sure with just 3 months of data.
But more likely it shows that average Spanish property prices have still not fallen enough, and vendors are having to give more ground to find buyers.
adiep says:
One wonders how this squares with the previous headline “Spanish property market grows 27pc in August”.
Perhaps the banks are starting to release properties at discounts? More sales due to lower prices, would that be a logical correlation to make?
Mark says:
Or maybe the banks are counting repos as sales. I’ll tackle this point in a seperate piece.