HOME SALES: Best July in five years

The Spanish property market had the best July for five years in terms of homes sold, with a trend that looks clearly on the up, according to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics.

There were 29,500 home sales recorded in August (not including subsidised home sales), up 15% on the same month last year, and 7% on June. This represents the highest level of sales inscribed in the property register in July in five years, and a 26% increase on July sales in 2013, when the market was in the process of bottoming out. The market appears to be on a clear growth trend, in sales terms at least, as illustrated by the chart above.

Looking back at the INE’s figures for July sales since the boom year of 2007, the worst years of the crisis were 2011 – 2013, with the bottom reached in 2013. Sales started to recover in 2014, and maintained the upward momentum this July.

That said, July sales were still 50% below the level in 2007, when the market was wildly inflated by easy credit and speculation.

Resales drive market growth

Resales were up 46% and new home sales down 39%, with the difference between the two widening to 19,924, as the supply of attractive new homes on the market dries up. For a while, during the boom years, and the beginning of the bust, new home sales outnumbered resales. Now the market has gone to the other extreme.

Cadiz and Barcelona provinces lead growth

Year to date (first seven months of the year), sales were up the most in Cadiz province (+20%), home to theCosta de la Luz, and Barcelona (+18%), followed by Las Palmas in the Canaries (+15%), Valencia city(+15%), the Madrid region (+12%), and Málaga province (+12%), home to the Costa del Sol.

Home sales are down in some provinces of the interior, like Ciudad Real (-19%) and Cáceres (-13%), and stagnant in a few provinces with Mediterranean coastlines, like Murcia (no change) and Castellón’s Costa del Azahar (+2%), suggesting a two-speed market in which the best areas are recovering, whilst the rest lag behind.