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Tecnocasa: Second-Hand House Prices Rose By 8% In H1

7 September 2016 – El Mundo

The average price of second-hand housing in Spain rose by 7.99% YoY during the first half of 2016, to €1,666/sqm, according to the XIII Report about the residential market, prepared by Tecnocasa and the University of Pompeu Fabra (UPF) using sale/purchase and mortgage data from the real estate company.

Despite the significant increase, this average price is still well below the maximum values that the market reached at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, when the average cost per square metre of second-hand homes amounted to more than €3,500. (…).

The city of Barcelona, which saw a price rise of 9.45%, led the increases during the first half of 2016, followed by Málaga (9.21%) and Madrid (9.03%). In this way, the cost per square metre rose to €2,443/sqm in Barcelona, to €1,044/sqm in Málaga and to €1,835 in Madrid.

In this regard, Tecnocasa notes that “we are seeing a two-speed recovery”, given that prices in cities such as Guadalajara, Sevilla, Zaragoza and Valencia increased by less than 2% (during the same period).

At a press conference held to present the report, the Director of the Department for Analysis and Reports at the Tecnocasa Group, Lázaro Cubero, explained that rental prices are also increasing, in the same proportion, and the average mortgage is also rising (€91,808), which represents an increase of 9.8%, although still represent less than half the lending figures in 2007 (€185,462). In this sense, it is worth remembering that the average monthly repayment amounts to €367.

Cubero stated that prices are still “attractive” – they are 52% lower than they were in 2006 for Spain as a whole – and financing conditions are very favourable, thanks to low interest rates, at a time when vendors are still having to apply discounts to their initial asking prices to achieve a sale.

The CEO of the Tecnocasa Group, Paolo Boarini, indicated that financial institutions are still behaving in a conservative way when it comes to granting mortgages: they are granting 73% of the appraisal value, and “it is very hard for people with temporary contracts to obtain a mortgage; self-employed people also face challenges”.

Meanwhile, for the Professor of Economics at the UPF and the coordinator of the report, José García Montalvo, the increase in the uptake of fixed-rate mortgages is “a significant change in the right direction”. He criticised Spain in this regard, stating that variable rate mortgages do not account for 95% of the total market in any other country, given that this means all of the risk in terms of interest rate fluctuations is transferred to the client. (…).

On the other hand, the Tecnocasa Group brokered 4,327 house sales in Spain during the first half of the year, up by 22% compared with the same period in 2015, as well as 1,445 mortgages, up by 28%, through its network of 465 offices (19.23%) and 2,000 sales agents. (…).

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake