The SPI House Price Index Tracker plots the six most-watched Spanish house price indices on one chart (above).

Spanish house price data can be unreliable, contradictory, and confusingly reported, but it’s worth keeping an eye on the main indices just to get a sense of the overall direction of house prices in spain. At least they give you an idea of where we are in the cycle.

As you can see from the chart above, prices were all dragged down by the Coronavirus pandemic last year, but the downward curves appear to have bottomed out, at least in most cases, by the start of 2021. The best conclusion you can draw from the current picture is that Spanish houses prices were in stable territory in the first quarter of the year.

In detail, the following residential property price indices were updated in the first quarter of 2021 (all figures show latest year-on-year percentage change):

• The Spanish Government (Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and the Urban Agenda (MITMA) based on officially-recognised valuations -0.9% in Q1
• The National Institute of Statistics (INE) based on data from the Land Registry +1.5% in Q4 2020
• The Spanish Land Registrars’ Association using their ‘repeat sale’ methodology +1.9% in Q1
• The Association of Spanish Notaries based on sales witnessed by its members -4.7% in March
• The Tinsa index based on property valuations carried out by the company +0.4% in March
• The Idealista.com (property portal) resale asking price index +1.5% in March

Tinsa also break down their index by type of region, showing that house prices rose the most in Q1 in the Balearic and Canary Islands, and the least in capitals and big cities, perhaps in keeping with a post-pandemic trend for demand in places with space and away from crowded cities.