Barcelona launches a property data site that should prove useful to anyone in the market.

The Ajuntament of Barcelona (municipal government) has just launched a website providing data on the city’s property market, produced by the Municipal Data Office, providing market metrics not available anywhere else. To the best of my knowledge this is the first such initiative in Spain, and can even be viewed in English (select ‘Anglès’, which is Catalan for English).

The stated objective of the website is to “provide a basic view of the recorded sales of real estate, and reflect the market dynamics in terms of operations, prices and locations within the city of Barcelona.”

The data, the site explains, is “based on notarial records of the purchase and sale of real estate in Barcelona.”

The ‘Latest indicators’ page gives you an overview of the market in the last quarter of 2020, and its evolution over time since 2012. It gives you a good snapshot of the market.

The ‘Data Filter’ section is a bit clunky, but it does allow you to check the number of sales and average price paid in any area of the city, so long as there is enough data in your area of interest, which means more than 100 sales. It only works well in areas with high liquidity like the Eixample.

You can see how sales and prices have evolved over the last four years in the ‘Statistics’ section, and can also check market metrics like sales volumes and prices in €/mw by district and neighbourhood using the ‘Cross-variables’ option.

The maps are like heat maps that give you an idea of where most transactions take place, and where prices are highest.

One thing you can’t do, which everyone always wants to do, is check the prices of comparable properties, like you can in other countries. This is not possible in Spain due to obstructive data protection laws, so the Municipal Data Office can’t be blamed for that failing. 

All in all it should prove a useful tool for anyone researching the property market in Barcelona. Check it out.