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Registrars: House Prices Rose by 7.6% in 2017

19 February 2018 – Eje Prime

All of the indicators are continuing to ratify the good health of the housing sector in Spain. In this vein, house prices recorded an increase of 7.6% in 2017, whereby continuing the rise observed in recent quarters. Moreover, they registered a quarterly increase of 19.8% between October and December, according to the Real Estate Statistics Register published by the College of Registrars of Spain.

Between October and December, 111,921 house sales were recorded in the property registers, down by 6.1% compared to the previous quarter, which made Q4 the quarter with the fewest house sales in 2017. Nevertheless, all four quarters of the year saw the number of house sales exceed 110,000 operations, something that has not happened since 2008.

The distribution of house sales by type was stable in terms of its structure, with 82.73% of total sales relating to second-hand homes and 17.27% to new build properties. During the last quarter of 2017, 19,325 new build homes were sold, representing a decrease of 7.47% with respect to the previous quarter, and 92,596 second-hand homes were sold, down by 5.77% compared to the third quarter.

Meanwhile, sales volumes increased by 19.8%, in total, compared with the last quarter of 2016. Over the last twelve months, 464,233 operations were registered, the highest annual figure recorded since 2008, up by 15% YoY.

All of the autonomous regions saw increases in the number of house sales in 2017 with respect to 2016. In the lead, Castilla-La Mancha saw a 23.1% rise, Asturias, 20.7%, Madrid, 19.1%, and the Community of Valencia, 17.8%. Moreover, the rates of growth reached double-digits in thirteen of the autonomous regions.

In terms of homes purchased by foreigners, the fourth quarter of the year closed with the highest percentage of purchases by foreigners in the last eight quarters, accounting for 13.6% of all house purchases. In absolute terms, they represented around 15,300 operations, slightly below the almost 15,600 transactions recorded in the previous quarter.

In addition, in cumulative YoY terms, the number of purchases by foreigners accounted for 13.1% of the total, continuing at record highs, with annual figures of almost 61,000 house purchases, compared to 59,200 in the previous quarter.

By nationality, the Brits retained their usual position as the most active buyers, accounting for 15.6% of the total purchases by foreigners, followed by the French (8.2%), Germans (7.8%), Swedes (7.1%), Belgians (6.8%), Italians (5.2%) and Romanians (5.1%).

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake