April was the worst month for the Spanish property market since the crisis began, but the picture isn’t so bad over 12 months.

Excluding social housing there were just 20,997 home sales in April, 32pc down in a year and 25pc down in a month, according to the latest figures from the National Institute of Statistics.

Compared to April 2007 the market has shrunk 62pc by volume and more than 70pc by value.

No segment was spared. New-build sales fell 32pc YOY to 11,534, and resales fell 27pc to 12,566.

Figures from the Ministry of Public Works (Fomento) for the first quarter paint a similar picture.

There were just 74,540 home sales in Q1, 50pc down on previous quarter and 30pc down on same time last year, according to figures from

The fall between December to January was dramatic – down 75pc – as illustrated by the chart below.

But the picture looks much better on a 12 month basis, with sales down just 1.6pc to 458,748 transactions over 12-months to the end of March.

And there is an obvious explanation for the drop in sales in Q1 – the elimination of mortgage tax relief that brought forward sales into last quarter of 2010. This is likely to distort the market for at least the first 4 months of the year.