This is a website for buyers, owners, and sellers of property in Spain, offering reliable information and resources to help you get things done with confidence. It is run by Mark Stücklin, author of the Spanish Property Doctor Column in The Sunday Times (2005-2008), and the book ‘Need to Know: Buying Property in Spain’ published by Collins.
The excess new housing inventory in Spain is declining, but not fast enough to take the pressure of the market in 2014.
There were 583,543 newly-built homes on the market at the end of 2012, down 6pc in a year but only 10pc lower from the peak of 649,780 in 2009, according to the latest figures from the Housing Department in the Ministry of Public Works (Fomento).
Clearly the market is still flooded with new homes built during the boom, many of them standing empty and depreciating over the years since they were finished. This oversupply is one of the main reasons why it’s unrealistic to expect Spanish house prices to increase next year, and the situation won’t be much better in 2015. And that’s just the new homes.
By region, the biggest stocks of new homes for sale are concentrated in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, and Andalucia, where popular holiday destinations and foreign demand encouraged builders to go over the top with their sales forecasts in the boom. In these regions the stock of new homes for sale represents more than 10pc of the national total, as illustrated on the following map.
Juan Miguel says:
Once again this is really depressing data. At the rate of decline from the peak of 2009 its will take 30 years to clear without another brick being laid or anxious foreigners who have had their fill of Spain putting their property on the market. The signs were there is 2005-6 that the boom was over. If developers had heeded this then we would have a problem which we might have been able to solve.
Enjoy the sun and lifestyle and try not to think about it.
Juan Miguel