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Greece 5 November 2018 – El Periódico de Aragón
Zaragoza is still leading the sales of new build homes in Spain. Last year, it was the third-ranked city in the country, after Madrid and Barcelona, in terms of sales volumes, with 800 transactions, and in 2018, it is maintaining that trend. In fact, during the second quarter of the year, the Aragonese capital recorded the sale of 305 new homes, exceeded only by Madrid. That is according to the latest report compiled by the real estate consultancy firm CBRE, which shows that the evolution of Zaragoza this year is even better than last year: 537 new build house sales were recorded during the first half of this year, and so all indications are that they will exceed the 800 units recorded in 2017.
According to the experts, pent-up demand during the years of the crisis, which forced many citizens to postpone their decision to buy a home due to the economic uncertainty, and the current supply of high-quality homes for sale at reasonable prices, are the main causes behind Zaragoza’s leadership of the sector.
Of course, the data is still light years away from the figures recorded before the crisis. “There is still a long way to go in the new build construction market”, said the Director of CBRE in Zaragoza, Miguel Ángel Gómez. During the peak of the real estate boom, 4,000 sales were recorded per quarter in Aragón, and 45% of those were in the new build segment, but that percentage has now dropped to 12%. The figures confirm that the reactivation of the sector is based almost exclusively on second-hand homes. “The supply of second-hand homes is enormous, for that reason, as property developers we have to offer a differentiated, high-quality product if we want to attract customers”, said the President of the Confederation of Construction Companies of Aragón (CEAC) and the Director General of the Lobe group, Juan Carlos Bandrés.
Data relating to the number of building permits that the Town Hall of Zaragoza is granting confirms the new build recovery: last year, 1,526 permits were granted, compared with 1,040 in 2015. This year, it seems that the number of permits granted is decreasing although we still have two months of the year left to run. Either way, the figure is well below the 3,150 recorded in 2009 and light years away from the 8,940 registered in 2006.
The experts also attribute the better performance of Zaragoza compared to other major cities in Spain to the fact that the community has managed to maintain “its own financial system” (Ibercaja), which continues to back the projects of property developers. “Here, there are more possibilities to take projects forward”, highlights Bandrés (…).
Original story: El Periódico de Aragón (by Rubén López)
Translation: Carmel Drake