Spanish property prices and sales have grown at their strongest level since the country’s housing recovery began, official figures show.
The latest National Institute of Statistics data shows that the number of property sales recorded in Spain in October 2017 was up 28 per cent on the same month a year ago. New home sales were up by 30 per cent, while existing home sales grew by 26 per cent.
And it seems that the growth in house sales is helping prices increase as well. The latest index from Spanish property appraisal firm Tinsa, shows that nationally prices increased by 4 per cent month on month, while year on year they were up 4.1 per cent. This is significantly higher than the 1.8 per cent recorded in the same period in 2016.
Year on year the strongest price growth by region was 6.8 per cent recorded in the Balearics and the Canaries.
And some experts are predicting that Spain’s property market recovery will continue to grow during 2018.
‘We expect these key trends to continue in 2018 and beyond as the property market recovery gathers pace,” explained Stijn Teeuwen, co-founder of luxury Spanish estate agency Lucas Fox. “We expect new homes and national buyers to account for a greater proportion of all Lucas Fox sales particularly in Madrid and Barcelona.”
Indeed, while Teeuwen expects to see fewer transactions from British investors over the coming 12 months, as the true impact of the upcoming Brexit continues to be felt, this decrease will be offset by increased interest from elsewhere. He expects sales to buyers from the United States, Canada, the Middle East and China to grow significantly, and for sales to buyers from Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands and Germany to account for a bigger proportion of sales.
Article published 8th January 2018