The sale of homes in Spain continues to rise, since in February 53,623 purchases were registered in the registers, the highest monthly figure since April 2008. According to the INE, operations have increased by 24% year-on-year and accumulated a rise of more than 27% in the first two months of the year, helped by the second-hand market.
Therefore, housing transactions accumulate a year of uninterrupted increases, although data from the statistics agency show that the year-on-year increase registered in February has moderated seven points compared to the growth that occurred in the first month of the year.
According to Francisco Iñareta, spokesman for Idealista, “the number of operations that were closed in the month of February is still very high and remains at 2008 levels. Even so, the growth trend seems to be softening compared to previous months and it is possible that the warlike tensions in Europe, high inflation and the possible increase in the cost of financing will accelerate this slowdown in the coming months. In addition, according to the data we handle at Idealista, the rate of reduction in available stock is also slowing: if at the end of 2021 the fall in stock in Spain was 2% year-on-year, in the first quarter it was only 1%”.
As for the type of housing, increases were observed both in operations on new homes, which grew by 9.2% to 10,921 operations, and used flats, with a rise of 28.4%, totaling 42,702 transactions. Compared to the first two months of the year, the second-hand market accumulated a year-on-year rise of 31.5% compared to the 12.9% rise in newly built house transactions.
On the other hand, the INE emphasizes that 92.1% of the homes transferred by sale in the second month of the year were free and 7.9% protected. The purchase and sale of free homes rose by 25.5% year-on-year in February, to 49,371 operations, while that of protected homes increased by 9%, adding a total of 4,252 operations.
Data by Autonomous Communities
All the autonomous communities except Navarra registered year-on-year increases, with the Canary Islands (52.2%), La Rioja (46.3%), and the Balearic Islands (42.2%) in the top 3. Above the average is also the Valencian Community, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Andalusia, Aragon and Castilla y León.
In Catalonia, sales rose by 22% year-on-year, while in Madrid the rise was 14.3%. The smallest increases have been registered in Asturias (8%) and Galicia (8.8%), followed by Navarra, with a drop of 4.6%.
However, the INE statistics emphasize that the communities with the highest number of transmissions per 100,000 inhabitants are La Rioja (201), Comunidad Valenciana (199) and Andalucía (163), although in absolute volume the three most outstanding regions of the country are, in order, Andalusia (10,978), Valencian Community (7,986), Catalonia (7,934) and Madrid (7,610).
However, the communities with the most sales in February (exceeding 2,000 units) are Canarias, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and the Basque Country. In contrast, La Rioja is the only region with less than 500 transactions in the second month of the year.
