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| Spain continues is recovery and smashes all records yet again. |
May Sees 9-Year High in Spanish Home Sales
The recovery of the Spanish property market has carried over
to the summer, as the latest official data from the National Statistics Institute
shows home sales reached a nine-year high in the month of May.
It was the summer of 2008 nine years ago; back when people
began to notice the signs of an impending financial crisis. Even so, the moods
were still high, if a little lower than during the summer of 2007.
Since then however, the property sector has been ravaged by
a Spanish double-dip recession, an EU crisis, and a global credit crunch. It
took a long time for recovery to begin, with things only looking up in 2013.
Despite the delay, the past 18 months have been very
positive overall, and the latest data from the INE is the best seen for some
time.
The official figures show that 44,782 homes were registered
as sold in May this year; the highest monthly figure seen since back in September
2008, and a whopping increase on May from last year of 22.9%.
This is hardly an isolated incident either. When combined,
the first five months saw a total of 191,537 properties change hands in Spain;
an 11.8% increase on the first five months of 2016.
To offer a larger view, data from the INE also shows that,
for the 12 months leading to the end of May 2017, home sales transactions were
around 425,000; an incredibly encouraging 11.9% annual increase.
There are always regional imbalances when it comes to the
number of transactions, but the data showed that sales were up in 16 out of 17
of the Spanish autonomous regions over last year. The Balearics and Castille-La
Mancha in particular had strong sales; with increases of over 35%.
Other recent data from the INE shows that property pricesincreased by an average of 5.3% nationwide.
