House sales in Spain were up by almost 19% in February compared with the same month last year, with 41,033 sale & purchase operations being recorded, consolidating the 2.1% increase recorded in January.
The latest figures, released today by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) show the biggest increase so far during the recession, with no increases at all having been recorded since 2008 until the beginning of this year.
The 18.7% increase was made possible by the 23.7% rise in used home sales (19,665 operations), and the 14.4% increase in new construction transactions (21,368).
90% of the February sale and purchase agreements related to urban property and the rest to rural. 52.2% of the urban sale and purchase agreements related to homes and the rest to commercial property.
In the second month of this year an average of 109 properties were sold per 100,000 inhabitants in Spain, with the aunonomous community of Cantabria recording the highest number of transactions with a total of 145 operations per 100,000 inhabitants.
It was followed by Navarre (138), Madrid (137), Valencia (119), Andalucia (114), Castilla y León (114), La Rioja (113), Murcia (112) and the Basque Country (110).
Below the national average were Castilla-La Mancha (108), Extremadura (105), Aragon (103), Asturias (102), Balearic Islands (97), Catalunya (92), Canary Islands (78) and Galicia (75) while the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla recorded a total of 49 and 219 operations per 100,000 population, respectively.
In absolute terms, Andalucia recorded the highest number of homes sold in February (7449), followed by Madrid (7018), Catalunya (5514) and Valencia (4896).
Source: ThinkSpain