Home prices in Spain fell by 3.9 in the second quarter, an improvement from a 6.7 per cent drop year-on-year in the first quarter of the year, according to the pricing index published by Tinsa, the valuations company.
The data reflects the growing consensus that the price declines are slowing and may hit a bottom in the next year. The drop compared to an 8.3 per cent decline in the fourth quarter of 2013. Two regions – Extremadura and Galicia – reported increases in prices in the second quarter, according to the company’s sales reports. Prices were up 2.8 per cent compared to the same quarter a year earlier, while Galicia prices ticked up a slight 0.1 per cent.
Tinsa labeled the latest data as a continuation of the “property price stabilization process initiated in 2013.” But many of Spain’s biggest markets still experienced sharp drops, including a 9.9 per cent drop in Madrid, 7.6 per cent in Valencia and a 4 per cent slide in Catalonia.
The overall average level of prices is comparable to the third quarter 2003, with prices down 39.6 per cent from 2007, Tinsa says. In Castilla-La Mancha and Catalonia the rice drops are closer to 50 per cent.
But the latest index data shows that the period of steep price declines may be coming to a close. However, Tinsa remained cautious, noting that even in Extremadura, where prices increases, the uptick should be “seen in a general process of stabilizing prices,” and that future declines cannot be ruled out before values “definitely touch ground.”
Get the full report (in Spanish) here.
