Land Registry Data Shows Spanish
Property Sales up 19% in One Year
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| Spain property sales continues to break sales records |
As if there wasn’t enough evidence out there that the
Spanish property market has picked itself back up, the latest data from the
Land Registry offers even more.
There are many different ways to measure how healthy the
Spanish real estate sector is – such as mortgage data, notary data, data from
the National Statistics Institute (INE), and search trends. Perhaps the most accurate
way to measure this success would be the land registry.
Property sales in January of this year were shown to be 19%
higher than in January of last year, which is the biggest increase for January
since 2008; according to leading Spanish property agent Mark Stücklin.
Stücklin said that sales figures had been inflated in 2011
and 2013 due to government interference; referring to tax incentives issued
during these lean years.
Stücklin is confident that this shows 2017 is truly the best
start to a year as far as property sales go since the boom period ended. It
also appears that there is plenty of demand across much of the country, with no
region coming out ahead of the crowd.
The land registry data shows that the biggest transaction
rise in January occurred in the Balearics, which saw an increase of 40%,
followed by the 36% in Barcelona, 35% in Costa Dorada and 28% in the Costa
Brava.
Property sales on the Costa del Sol were up 20% in Janary
compared to last January, pushing it above the national average and a clear
sign that property sales will remain strong across 2017 despite the looming
concerns of Brexit negotiations and how they impact British buyers.
As far as the property types go, resales increased 21%
compared to 2016, with 8% more new homes sold. Stücklin said that it was a
reassuring sign that the recovery of Spanish home sales will continue into
2017, and that the increases seen in Alicante and Malaga suggest that international
buyers are coming forward.
The Brits were still the largest single nationality in terms of foreign buyers in January, accounting for 11% of foreign buyers. Second was
the Middle East with 8%, while Scandinavia came in third with 7%.
