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 SPI House Price Index Tracker plots the progress of the six most-watched house price indices in Spain, and brings them together in one chart.
When it comes to Spanish house prices, it’s hard to find useful data. There is no shortage of house price indices published by different organisations, but they tend to be all over the place, based as they are on different source data and methodologies. Nevertheless, they do at least give us an idea of the general trend, especially when taken together. All the data is finally in for 2018, and as you can see from the chart above, all the indices I track were positive, with national average house prices up between 3.9% and 8.4% in 2018 depending on who you believe. At least they all agree that house prices rose last year, which would be the second year running that has happened, and the first time we’ve seen two consecutive years with all indices positive since the boom years more than a decade ago. So, at the very least, the data suggests that the Spanish property continued along the growth phase of the cycle last year.
The Tinsa index, based on their own valuations, also gives house price changes by type of region, showing both the Islands and the coast, where foreigners tend to buy, increasing more than the general index.
The next two charts from the Spanish Government’s Housing Department in the Ministry of Public Works (Fomento) illustrate the house price cycle we have been through since 2006, with prices going from growth to decline and back again. The second chart shows prices in real terms, that is adjusted for inflation. Prices have been rising most years since the recovery began, but nothing like they did in the boom years, and nowhere near enough to claw back the ground lost in the bust. Though some hot markets like the Balearics are now higher than they were in the boom years, the balance sheet of the Spanish housing market is still deep in the red, and the house price recovery on a national level looks somewhat feeble this time around.
Chris Nation says:
As someone who bought in Valencia old town in Q1 2016 when GBP was 1,40€, things look quite good.
The large u/ground car park project out back of Mercado Cntral, abandoned for some 10 years, sparked back to life [new PSOE regime in City Hall?] and was finished in time for Xmas.
The flat above mine is now finished, to a high standard [electric roller shutters on the doors to their terraza].
Our building’s exterior refurb and paint job has finished – now for the stairwell and landings.
The sprawling old hostál next door is going ahead with a total strip-out and refurb.
Lots more of this sort of thing all over the old town barrios.
But what’s going to happen come Monday morning, 29th April? Kinda Brexitesque …
Mark Stücklin says:
Good to hear everything is well in your neck of the woods. I expect nothing much will happen on the 29th April, though I don’t much trust my predictions any more. One thing I did get right though, was the no brainer of buying prime property in Spain during the crisis years.