Barcelona now Spain’s top hotspot for foreign buyers

The number of Barcelona home sales recorded in the Land Registry involving a foreign buyer hit an all-time high in the first quarter of the year, with much higher growth than any other big market in Spain.

962 of Barcelona’s residential property sales inscribed in the Land Registry in the first quarter of the year (Q1) involved a foreign buyer, up 17.5pc on the same period last year, reveal figures just published by the Catalan regional government (Generalitat), based on data from the Spanish Land Registry. 

Catalonia is the only Spanish region to publish detailed figures on home sales broken down by volume, buyer type, location (including Barcelona city) and price, and SPI is the only place you will find the figures analysed. 

Total Q1 home sales in Barcelona city were up 0.3pc to 3,973, whilst the number of homes purchased by locals fell by 4pc to 3,011. As a result, the foreign market share (FMS) hit a Q1 high of 24pc (next chart). In other words, almost one in four home sales recorded in the period involved a buyer from abroad. I suspect the figure is closer to 50% in more expensive, sought-after areas like Barcelona’s Eixample.

How does an FMS of 24pc compare to other regions of Spain? We only have provincial data for comparison (next chart). In 2023 the highest FMS was in Alicante province (53pc), followed by Tenerife (42pc) and Malaga (39pc). Barcelona province as a whole was near the bottom on 16.5pc, so nothing special.

What about an international comparison like London? The latest news I’ve seen suggests the FMS in Greater London is around 23pc, similar to Barcelona. But the ten-year average in London is much higher, around 30pc in Greater London and 50% in Prime Central London, according to research by the estate agency Hamptons. So although Barcelona’s FMS is currently growing, it is not exceptional by Spanish or international standards.

Foreign buyers flock to Barcelona in growing numbers

Without data for other municipalities for comparison it’s difficult to say with certainty, but it is likely that Barcelona was the best performing big market in Spain in terms of foreign buyers in Q1 by a wide margin. The following chart illustrates how Barcelona province, along with Murcia, was the only market (of any significant size of interest to foreign investors, and 50pc bigger than Murcia) to grow in both 2023 and Q1 2024, and although you can’t see it on the chart, Barcelona city (+17.5pc) grew much more than Barcelona province (+3pc).

Barcelona house prices in Q1 2024

The average price of Barcelona city property sales recorded in Q1 was €376,600, up 5pc, with new build sales on €454,300, up 8pc. The average price of all property in €/sqm was 4,424, up 2pc, whilst asking prices were on 4,295 €/sqm (below sale prices), up 6pc. Barcelona property prices have been somewhat subdued since 2017, as the following charts illustrate.

Barcelona comeback

The next chart shows the annualised percentage change in both local and foreign demand since 2015. Notice the dip in 2017-2018 and 2020-2021.

Both the sale and price charts show how Barcelona fell out of favour with local and foreign buyers in a period from 2017 when the hard Left under Mayoress Ada Colau and her Barcelona En Comù party ran City Hall whilst Catalan separatists in control of the Generalitat pursued their pipedream of independence from Spain. A feeble recovery in 2019 was then killed off by pandemic.

Now that Covid-19 is just another runny nose, Colau is no longer in charge of Barcelona, and the next President of Catalonia will almost certainly be Salvador Illa and his Socialist party (not separatists) the Catalan capital is back in favour with foreign buyers, the numbers suggest.

Might this cause local resentment? I suspect so, but that’s a topic for another day.

You can find much more detail on the types of buyers, types of property, sales by districts and prices in the Barcelona property market Data Hub.