Swedish Demand for Spanish Property up 20%

Swedish Demand for Spanish Property up 20%

The latest data from the property registrars (Registradores) and the Spanish second home analysts Shario shows how the foreign interest in Spanish property is changing. It looks like the fastest growing group of buyers is the Swedish market.

The sweeds have been buying property for years

but even more so right now

The figures show that Swedish buyers picked up 22.7% more property during the summer of 2016 compared to the previous quarter; meaning Swedes are now the fourth largest group of international buyers.

Brits were responsible or 18% of transactions made to foreign buyers, followed by the French at 9%. The Swedish bought the same amount of homes as the Germans (7%) but there is a crucial difference; Swedish demand is rising at a rapider pace than German demand.

There are some places, such as the Costa del Sol and Alicante, where Swedish buyers have become the second largest group of foreign buyers after the British.

While the specific number of homes sold to Swedes is small compared to the British, it’s important to understand the context. Swedes purchased 2,797 Spanish properties leading to the third quarter of 2016; which was more than the 2,755 properties sold across all of 2015. There was an average of 1,000 properties sold during the second and third quarter, suggesting that 4,000 homes could be sold to Swedes in total during 2016.

Swedish buyers typically prefer to buy two-bedroom apartments or a small townhouse up to an hour away from the airport and close to a beach.

August Sees 20% in Spanish Home Sales

August Sees 20% in Spanish Home Sales

While it’s true that monthly home sales for buying property in the Costa del Sol and Spain are still quite low compared to the highs of 2006-2007 the figures for this year were still the highest in six years.

Property sales continue on the uptrend

August 2016 is going to be a month that saw many different records smashed in Spain. For a start the country welcomed record numbers of tourists and a record amount of consumer spending, including record numbers of overnight hotel stays and flights to and from Spain.

All of these records being broken was bound to reflect positively on the property market and, if the data from the Office of National Statistics (INE) is to be believed then it definitely did. The latest figures show that August saw 20.3% more homes sold compared to August of last year.

All in all there were 35,501 homes sold in August, which is the most homes sold since 2010. They also showed that the trend of increased property sales is continuing on and shows no signs of slowing down.

In terms of overall property sales for the year so far Spain has seen some 276,000 homes sold nationwide in the first eight months of 2016. This is a 14.8% increase compared to the first eight months of last year.

In terms of the past 12 months Spain has seen 391,000properties change hands; an increase of 13.3%. It’s expected that this trend should continue for at least five more years as the economic recovery of the country continues.

The GDP of Spain is set to grow by about 3%, mostly due to the domestic demand in the real estate sector. There has also been strong foreign demand in the property sector, including a rise in British demand during the year.

This doesn’t mean one can neglect the market contributions of the French, German and Scandinavian buyers though. There are also more Chinese buyers than before as Spain continues to draw the attention of everyone all over the world.