Home sales in June reached levels not seen since the last boom, as the Spanish property market displays increasingly strong signs of recovery after the Coronavirus pandemic.

There were 64,877 homes sold in Spain during June, according to data from the Association of Spanish Notaries, up 71% on the same time last year, and the first time the market has risen above 60,000 sales per month since 2007 (ignoring a few artificial spikes driven by bank operations in the depths of the crash). 

As you can see from the chart above, sales were pushed below 20,000 in the lockdown month of April last year, but since then the trend has been upwards, with close to 60,000 or more sales in four of the last six months. 

Looking at the annualised change in sales each month since the start of 2018 (next chart) you can see the contraction in the first half of last year, and the growth in the first half of 2021.

A big percentage increase this year compared to last year was to be expected, given that last year sales were impaired by the arrival of the pandemic and the lockdown policy response. But June sales were also 41% higher than 2019, and 13% higher than 2018, suggesting the market has more than recovered the ground it lost to the pandemic.

That said, some of the growth we are seeing this year might be partly due to pent-up demand from last year finally turning into sales, which will wear off in the coming months. But that doesn’t change the fact that buyers now appear to be brimming with confidence. 

Spanish home sales by region in June 2021

Looking at the Spanish regions of most interest to international buyers, sales growth was strong across the board, led by the Canaries and the Valencian region (home to the Costa Blanca), both up more than 100% (next chart).

Once again, strong growth compared to last year was to be expected, so it helps to look back further to 2019 and 2018 for benchmarks. As you can see from the next chart, Andalusia is recovering the strongest, with sales up more than 50% compared to 2019, and 25% compared to 2018. The only regions where sales were not higher than 2018 were the Canaries and the Balearics.

If you look at sales year-to-date (first six months), Murcia is doing best, followed by Andalusia (final chart). Once again, only the islands are below the pre-pandemic years. In the case of the Balearics, that might be at least partly due to a worsening shortage of homes for sale.

Overall the latest sales figures from the notaries, based on sales witnessed by them in the month of June, suggest the Spanish property market is doing much better than expected whilst foreign buyers are still being kept away in large numbers by the ongoing restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.