28 Feb
2019

Where are foreigners buying in spain? Infograhic

Click on the stars to give a rating

Reading time 3 minutes. Use our table of content for a quick read.
Last Updated on 18/07/2023 by STEPHANE

Click on any flag to get an automatic translation from Google translate. Some news could have an original translation here: News Nouvelles Nieuws Noticias Nachrichten

How strong is the activity on the real estate market in Spain?

The “Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas”, INE, has just released the Transactions statistics for the month of December 2018 and the full year.

33.831 properties were sold in December +3.8% vs last year
90% are transactions on non protected properties while 10% are on protected properties
27.659 properties are second-hand sales, i.e. 82% of the transactions, a growth of 6.5% vs last year
6.172 are new build properties, i.e. 18% of the transactions, a growth of 93.2% vs last year

Here is the price and transaction evolution with quarterly data over the last 20 years:

What are the most active regions in terms of transactions?

Andalusia with 6.741 transactions, +7.1% vs last year
Catalunia with 5.184 transactions, +5.9% vs last year
The Valencian community with 5.140 transactions, + 2.9% vs last year
The Madrid Community with 4.854 transactions, +1.6% vs last year

Those 4 regions are the same where foreigners are the most active:

Where do we see the strongest growth in December vs last year?

The Region of Murcia with a growth of 22.6% and 1.102 transactions
Cantabria with a growth of 19%, and 500 transactions
Extremadura with a growth of 18.4% and 560 transactions
La Rioja with a growth of 18.6% and 223 transactions

Where do we see the biggest activity vs the living population in the region?

The Valencian community with 131 transactions for 100.000 inhabitants
The Balearic Islands with close to 109 transactions per 100.000 inhabitants
Cantabria has 108 transactions per 100.000 inhabitants

Where do we see the slowest activity vs the living population in the region?

Asturies, Aragon, Canary Islands, Castilla and Leon, Castilla La Mancha, Catalonia, Extremadura, The Basque country and Galicia are the least active regions with transactions between 95 to 63 per 100.000 inhabitants.

If you want to check further the activity on the top 20 property markets in Spain: evolution of prices and transactions up to June 2018, have a look at our full report:

What was the situation on the Spanish property market in August 2018?

44.637 properties were sold in August +7.4% vs last year
90% are transactions on non protected properties while 10% are on protected properties
36.462 properties are second-hand sales, i.e. 82% of the transactions, a growth of 6.9% vs last year
8.175 are newbuild properties, i.e. 18% of the transactions, a growth of 9.6% vs last year

Most active regions in terms of transactions?

Andalusia with 9.141 transactions
Catalunia with 6.883 transactions
The Valencian community with 6.591 transactions
The Madrid Community with 6.212 transactions

Strongest growth vs last year?

The Navarre with a growth of 37.3% and 670 transactions
The Region of Murcia with a growth of 23.4% and 1.423 transactions
The Asturias with a growth of 23.4% and 817 transactions
The Basque country with a growth of 18.7% and 1.855 transactions

Biggest activity vs the living population in the region?

The Valencian community with 168 transactions for 100.000 inhabitants
Andalusia with 139 transactions per 100.000 inhabitants
The Navarre, Cantabria, The Balearic Islands have all close to 130 transactions per 100.000 inhabitants
Murcia, The Canary Islands and Madrid have all close to 122 transactions per 100.000 inhabitants

What is the evolution over the full year 2018?

Strong growth of properties sold in Spain in 2018: +10.1%

The growth was strong in 2018: +10.1% to 515.051 units. Actually, it’s not the first time: +15,4% in 2017, +14% in 2016 and +11.5% in 2015. To compare this number with the units sold in 2014, we had 318.8 properties sold in 2014.

Please remember, you have 26m properties in Spain and before the crisis, yearly transactions were bigger than 800.000 units/year.

New build and existing properties are both strong in 2018:

New build properties: 92.520 sold in 2018, +11.1% vs last year. (+10.8% in 2017, -2.4% in 2016, -34.5% in 2015)

Existing properties: 422.531 sold in 2018, +9.9% vs last year. (+16.4% in 2017, 18.5% in 2016, 38.4% in 2015)

Check the evolution over the last 4 years

Which are the most active regions in 2018?

Here are the 4 most active regions in Spain in term of property transactions:

Andalusia	101300
Catalonia	81000
Valencian Community	78800
Madrid (Community of)	75900

Which regions are growing faster than the country average?

Here are the Spanish regions growing at the fastest pace in 2018:

Region of Murcia	24.3%
La Rioja	18.9%
Castilla-La Mancha	18.1%
Navarre	16.2%
Valencian Community	14.7%
Asturias	13.8%
Cantabria	13.6%
Andalucía	13.1%
Galicia	12.1%
Aragon	10.8%