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Price Increases Spreading In Major Cities. Valencia, Malaga And Palma De Mallorca Gain Speed.


13 February 2016 – Expansion

Real Estate recovery takes pace and extends to a growing number of provinces and province capitals. Specifically, 21 provinces are already positive year-on-year, according to the sold homes assessment carried out by Tinsa valuating company. On the other hand, sixteen provincial capitals have also increased prices in the last year. 
Thus, the recovery is concentrated in Madrid, Barcelona and Costa del Sol, which are the leading indicators of Spanish Real Estate sector. In fact, whenever there has been a crisis, these three areas have been the big headlights targeting where the rest of the market would head for in the coming months. 
Firstly, Madrid and Barcelona are the two largest metropolitan areas and also the cities that account for more space in prime areas. Stock depletion in these areas as well as high demand in these two cities has led to strong advances, reaching 6.2% in the Spanish capital and 8.7% in Barcelona. These increases are also supported on the largest credit facilities and improvement in confidence during the past year. 
On the other hand, many coastal capitals have experienced a great boost thanks to the pull of Marbella, Valencia, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca. This increase is due to the strong increase on foreign demand. These cities show a strong acceleration in the last month. For instance, the price of housing in Valencia rose at a rate of 0.6% in the fourth quarter, 1.6% in Málaga and 2.2% in Palma de Mallorca; in January, the three of them soared to paces of 4.7%, 5% and 5.6%, respectively. In addition, tha fact that this price has been relaunched in cities where the stock was weighing down the real estate suggests that this volume of unsold homes is very quickly shrinking.

Two paces     

However, Spanish market being divided into two speeds is something that cannot be left out. On the one hand, the great capitals and certain areas of the Mediterranean coast, which show a strong growth. On the other hand, much of the inland Spain, where there is either a large second-hand market or an aging population that subtracts dynamism from the demand. 
In this situation we find cities like Pamplona, Palencia, Zamora, Leon and Huesca, where prices have not yet finished their fall. However, Tinsa forecasts indicate that the recovery of the “brick” will be consolidated in 2016, bringing these areas to positive territory. Although the landscape is far better among the great capitals, some of these cities also remain in negative. This is the case of Zaragoza, where home prices fell at a rate of 3.1% in January, or Bilbao, shrinking back by 0.2%. Sevilla, however, shows a shy increase of 0.6%.

Original story: Expansion (by P. Cerezal)

Translation: Aura Ree