Registrars Place Increase in House Prices at 7.5% Y-o-Y in Q2

Average house prices in Spain rose by 7.5% in the second quarter of the year, compared to the same period of 2015, while the volume of sales climbed by 23.7%, with a total of 107,838 transactions being recorded in the property registers, according to data published in a press release this week by the Association of Registrars. Compared with the first quarter of the year, home sales increased by 8.5% and prices rose by 2.2%.

The Registrars pointed out that these price increases are continuing to reduce the decline accumulated since 2007, which has fallen to 26%, and consolidates the change in trend which began 2014, also with regard to the number of transactions.

Moreover, El Economista reported that, after a long period registering record lows, the volume of transactions on new housing have now accumulated two consecutive periods of quarter-on-quarter rises (0.8%), while in the second hand market, the increase registered was 10.3% compared to the first quarter of the year.

The number of transactions on second hand homes in Spain reached a total of 80,042, representing an increase of 11,380 transactions over the previous quarter, which according to the Registrars is the best data recorded in the last eight years. Foreign buyers accounted for almost 14,000 of the house purchases, representing 13.4% of all the housing transactions carried out, compared to 12.9% in the first quarter of the year.

In year-on-year terms, the volume of home purchases carried out by foreign buyers reached over 51,500 transactions, representing around 13.4% of the total housing transactions.

With regard to the nationalities of the foreign buyers, British buyers made the greatest number of purchases, accounting for 19.73% of the foreign transactions, followed by: the Germans (7.38%); French (7.5%); Swedish (6.95%); Italians (5.99%) and Belgians (5.63%).