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Savills: House Sales will Exceed 500,000 Again in 2019

19 February 2019 – Voz Pópuli

For the first time since 2008, more than half a million homes were sold in Spain last year, and the good performance is expected to be replicated in 2019 with forecasts that between 500,000 and 600,000 homes will be sold.

The deceleration of the Spanish economy – which will move from growing at a rate of 2.5% in 2018 to around 2% this year – is not expected to prevent the residential sector from consolidating its growth, although the maximum levels recorded in 2007, when 775,300 operations were signed in the country, is not going to be repeated.

“We do not think that we will return to those figures. Staying at the sales levels seen over the last two years, of close to 550,000 units sold, will be an excellent result”, explained Arturo Díaz, Executive Director of the residential market at the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman, speaking to Voz Pópuli.

He considers that this rate of growth is reasonable if we take into account the rate of household creation in the country, the levels of purchases for investment and the purchases for holiday homes (…).

The real estate consultancy CBRE agrees with this outlook (…). In fact, the firm is more ambitious with its forecasts as it expects 625,000 house sale operations to be closed in 2019, due to an increase in demand (…).

The growth profile

The main real estate consultancy firms all agree that there will be an increase in new build sales in 2019, in parallel to a slight decrease in the sales of second-hand homes, and so the gap between the two will begin to close.

Moreover, they confirmed that a change has taken place in terms of the profile of house buyers in Spain, with large international investors playing an increasingly greater role.

“Whilst a decade ago, demand for residential assets was dominated by domestic private families (individuals), nowadays, the market is characterised by investment vehicles, institutional funds and insurance companies – owned by foreign capital in many cases – the most active players in this segment”, said Lola Martínez Brioso, Head of Research at CBRE.

House prices in Spain rose by 8.2% in 2018, according to the Real Estate Statistics Registry from the College of Registrars, which means that they are still well below the peaks reached during the construction boom. In 2019, the sector expects the price rises to moderate (to around 4-5%) (…).

Although the price rises will be more moderate overall, there will be important differences by area (…). By region, the experts forecast that the large cities and their metropolitan areas will continue to lead the charge in terms of house price rises, specifically, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga and the major municipalities in those areas.

Díaz also adds that “other large cities such as Valencia and Sevilla are starting to show a high level of activity”, along with certain holiday markets, “such as the Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca and Costa de la Luz, where the recovery in domestic demand, together with the appeal that those regions have for international buyers, is generating a high volume of purchasing activity”.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Alejandra Olcese)

Translation: Carmel Drake