Spanish home sales declined by 18pc in July compared to last year, according to the latest data from the notaries. Compared to last year’s boom the downward adjustment is picking up steam, but it still looks like a soft landing.

There were 57,255 Spanish home sales witnessed by notaries during July, down 18pc nationally with much bigger declines on the Spanish islands. The latest home sales and annualised picture is illustrated by the chart above in which you can also see that the annualised change in sales has been negative since October last year.

However, if you just look at October and compare sales to previous years, the picture is much more positive (next chart). Sales are down compared to last year’s post-pandemic boom, but still higher than in 2019, and only just below 2018. So, by the standard of more normal years than 2022, sales this July were healthy. So far it looks like the market is enjoying a soft-landing after last year’s boom in sales, at the national level at least.

The 12-month rolling total sales figure smooths out the ups and downs of each month and gives us a good idea of the underlying trend. As you can see from the next chart, the trend is clearly in a period of contraction.

Regional sales

Compared to a national decline of 18pc, sales declined by 37% in the Canaries, and 31pc in the Balearics, the two regions where foreign buyers have the biggest market share. In other regions of interest to foreign investors sales declined 22pc in Andalusia, 18pc in Catalonia and the Valencian region, 17pc in Madrid, and 13pc in Murcia. 

Pro subscribers can take a deep dive into the Spanish home sales data.