Close to 0.5 million transactions in 2017
Spanish home sales have kept growing year-on-year since 2013, to reach 464.423 transactions in 2017 according to INE (National Institute of Statistics). This number is a record since 2008 as you can see on the graph below.
Foreign buyers purchased 55,512 Spanish properties, therefore representing 13,7% of all real estate transactions in Spain (see here for more details).
New Homes – on the rise again
Even more interesting, the New Homes (“Vivienda Nueva”, in green on the graph) are regaining popularity.
By type of property, in 2017 the second-hand homes represented over 380.000 transactions which was 82.1% of the total sales. The rest was 83.260 sales of new homes, which made for 17.9% of the market. This is still extremely far from the record numbers that were being recorded in 2007, 2008 and up until 2010 with over 200.000 new homes sold. This sector used to represent over 50% of the transactions in Spain. So this 17.9% still looks very pale. Foreign buyers typically represent a higher percentage in the new homes segment.
Barcelona – sales of new homes VS sales of second-hand homes
The regional figures in Barcelona depict an even weaker situation for builders. From July 2016 to June 2017, new homes represented only 6.8% of the transactions (1.058 out of 15.558 sales).
Second-home buyers are definitely driving the recovery in Spain’s property market. Let’s see how that evolves in the coming 12 months.
Thanks for reading my latest article on foreign buyers in Spain. For more information about foreign buyers in Spain please consult https://foreignbuyerswatch.com/category/foreign-buyers-in-spain/. For more information about how to build a strong international marketing strategy for your agency or franchise network, simply email me at reiser@listglobally.com