Spain Reduces Amount of Unsold Homes by 300,000

Spain Reduces Amount of Unsold Homes by 300,000

The Costa del Sol continues its recovery

While there are some areas of Spain that are having trouble attracting buyers, some areas of the country remain as popular as ever; such as the Costa del Sol. Around half of the unsold properties that were constructed before the crash of 2008 have now been sold according to the latest data from the Caixa Bank Group.

The analysis looked at the bulk of homes that were long thought to be unsellable due to their location, lack of infrastructure, and low demand. It showed that of the 650,000 properties that were on the market in 2009, only 388,000 were still unsold by the end of 2016.

This was representative of a drop of 20% in just one year, with similar results expected in 2017. Caixa are predicting that there will be less than 315,000 of these properties on the market by the end of 2017.

Some areas, such as Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol, are already running out of such unsellable properties. The areas that still have the most amount of these homes including La Rioja, Castille-La Mancha, and Valencia; the inland areas that don’t have as much demand.

To contrast this the problem doesn’t really exist in areas such as the Canaries and the Balearics, thanks in part to the popularity of the regions and the strict building controls.

The bank did further analysis that suggested property transactions would increase 12% in 2017; an increase on the 450,000 home sales recorded in 2016.

Caixa are also expecting that the average property price will increase 4.3% in 2017. Also on the increase is the number of foreign buyers, but it’s expected that British buyers will be a less dominant force with sales spread out between British, German, French and Scandinavian buyers.

It’s also expected the country, in particular Barcelona and the Costa del Sol, will see an increase in demand from Chinese, American and Russian investors.

Amount of Foreign Buyers Grew Higher Than Spanish Buyers in Spanish Property Market

Amount of Foreign Buyers Grew Higher Than Spanish Buyers in Spanish Property Market

Costa de sol property for sale continues to be in demand

Data has emerged that shows the amount of non-Spanish property buyers in Spain grew by 12.9% in 2015. Roughly 1 in 5 homes sold in Spain in 2015 was sold to a foreign buyer.

Overall a grand total of 76,780 homes were sold to foreigners in Spain. This was a big increase on the number sold in 2014 and was much higher than the 9% increase in Spanish buyers.

A total of 383,987 homes were sold in Spain 2015. Outside of native buyers the most buyers came from Britain. British buyers accounted for 20.6% of all the homes sold to non-Spanish buyers.

British interest also grew more than any other country. The number of homes sold to British buyers was up a whopping 37.7%; over 4 times the increase in growth for Spanish buyers.

British property buyers bought a total of 15,810 homes last year. They were definitely the biggest foreign national group. France came in second with 8.8% of the homes sold to non-nationals going to the French. Next came the Germans at 7.5%, Belgians at 5.7% and Italians at 5.3%.

The sixth-largest nationality were the Romanians. They made up 5.3% of all the homes sold to foreign nationals. This was a massive growth of 59% on the previous year. The amount of Russian interest dropped a little and the amount of American interest stayed roughly the same.

Most of the property sold to a foreign buyer was in Andalucía with 20.5% of all the homes sold to foreign nationals in the city. This suggests that the climate, infrastructure and culture of the entire Costa del Sol region is bringing in the buyers.

The Valencia region was the place where the most property was sold to foreign buyers though. Valencia is home to Costa Blanca and 27.6% of the homes sold to foreign nationals were in the Valencia region. Other popular regions were Catalunya at 15.3% and the Canary Islands at 10.1%.