House prices: Boom, Bust and recovery

A closer look at the Spanish house price index published by the National institute of statistics (INE) shows property prices are on the road to recovery in all regions.

The INE index is based on home sales inscribed in the Spanish land registry, allot more accurate than analysing valuations or asking prices.The INE also provide figures for house prices broken down by autonomous region. This gives us an idea of the direction of the market over time. The attached chart shows the annual change in prices per quarter nationally and by region with foreign buyers. House prices plunged in 2007 to the end of 2013(the crash) before starting to rise moderately in most places from 2014 onwards. The chart shows how all areas have followed the same trend, although at different rates of change as you would expect.

The national average of annual change in house prices is 6.2% lead by Madrid at 10.2% and Extremadura at the bottom at 0.3% annual increase. The overall picture is that there is reasonable house price growth in most regions popular with foreign investors.

In conclusion house prices are still nowhere near their peaks. At the same time prices are clearly following a rising trend, though rarely in double figures outside of Madrid, suggesting that the prices are not yet rising at an unsustainable rate. Assuming no big shocks, The trend towards moderatley rising prices is set to continue for the foreseeable future.