Every month the SPI House Price Index Tracker plots the progress of the six most-watched house price indices in Spain, and puts them all on one page. All the latest results are highlighted in yellow in the chart above.
The following house price figures were published in May (all figures show annualised change):
- The Land Registrars’ Association index +7.74% in the first quarter
- The Government (Fomento) index +2.2% in the first quarter
- The Tinsa index +2% in April
- The Idealista (resale asking price) index -0.7% in May
- The Notaries’ Association index -1.3% in March
There’s not much of a pattern to discern other than the sense that average house prices are either slightly rising or slightly falling, either way not changing by much.
The outlier is the 7.74% increase reported by the registrars, using their repeat sales methodology that only looks at the price of property that has sold twice in the period of study.
National house price figures are not much use when it comes to understanding local markets, but they might influence expectations and confidence, which is why I keep an eye on them. In reality, house prices are falling in many parts of the interior where there is little or no demand, whilst rising in hot markets with strong demand like Barcelona, Madrid, Ibiza, Marbella, and so on.
In my opinion, the most interesting figures come from Spain’s biggest appraisal company Tinsa, based on its own valuations. Tinsa also break down their monthly index by area, so you can see how prices are changing in the cities, on the coast, and on the islands. Though the general index was only up by 2% in April, house prices in big cities like Barcelona and Madrid were up 6.1%, with the Balearic and Canary Islands up 4%, and the mainland Mediterranean coast up 1.3%.
