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 number of home sales inscribed in the Spanish property register in November rose 17% compared to last year, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Last month I reported that growth in home sales had slowed to 7% after double-digit increases almost every other month this year. I worried the recovery in sales might be running out of steam in the face of headwinds from the Spanish political impasse and Brexit. However, now Spain has a stable Government, and it looks like those worries were overblown. Buyers were back in force in November, with 30,514 homes sales inscribed in the Property Register (not including subsidised housing), an increase of 17% on last year.
The chart above shows this year’s monthly sales in red, compared to sales for the last nine years. It illustrates how sales volumes are recovering, and if the trend continues, monthly sales should reach 35,000 or more in the course of 2017.
Resales were up 21% and new homes sales up 4%. The next chart shows how the big declines in new home sales are now largely a bad memory, and the one after that how badly new home sales were hit by the crisis.
BY REGION
The following chart shows year-to-date percentage change in sales by selected regions (areas where foreigners tend to buy). Growth was strongest in the Balearics and Almeria (a small market), followed by Barcelona. Growth was weakest in Malaga (Costa del Sol), Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, and Murcia – all market where the British are the biggest group of foreign buyers. This is almost certainly the result of Brexit reducing British demand for property in Spain this year.
SUMMARY TABLE MONTHLY SPANISH PROPERTY SALES – ALL YEARS
Chris Nation says:
Ummmm … I seem to be a chart short – the regional one.
This datum must come as balm to any nervousity in the Stücklin treasury department. It does to mine ie me.
With a team of two, at any point, when news comes in, one gets to say, “There! I told you so!”
What do we have on prices V á V this increase in sales?
Mark Stücklin says:
Yes, the regional chart was missing, now in place. Thanks for spotting that. Been trying to do things too quickly recently, what with the renovation project and now overwhelmed with mortgage claim enquiries – hundreds in about a week.
Any sign the market is improving is welcome, let’s just hope things don’t get out of hand. No figures on prices from INE yet, but as you know the national price indices are almost meaningless. And I don’t much trust the data I see for Barcelona, as based on my own purchase it looks to me like prices have almost doubled in a couple of years.