Average national Spanish home prices rose by 0.3 per cent over 12 months to the end of September, according to the latest house price index published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), based on data from the Property Register.
Spanish property prices have only just edged into positive territory after six consecutive years of annualised declines since 2008. House prices haven’t rise since Q1 2008, when they were still positive, but trending towards a crash.
Priced crawled into the black in Q2, with an increase of 0.8 per cent, so +0.3 per cent in Q3 looks like the positive experience might be short lived. It would not come as a surprise if prices dipped back into negative territory in Q4, but the trend is now clearly up for both new and resale property prices.
Looking at the index broken down by new and resale, it looks like prices stabilised in Q1 2013, and have been steady or increasing a fraction ever since. Since 2007 resale values have fallen the most, down 42 per cent, whilst new properties have held their values better, down 26.4 per cent.
By region the trend is similar in all areas, but in this drawn-out boom and bust Catalonia and Madrid have adjusted the most, probably because they were the most over-priced in the boom, whilst Andalusia and Murcia have suffered the least.
Finally, the following chart of annualised price changes by region shows how prices have changed in selected regions over the last seven years.
