The last 12 months have been extremely positive for Spanish properties nationwide.
The data for the 1st quarter of 2018 have been published by INE, the Spanish statistics institute. The annual variation of the price index (i.e. compared to the 1st trimester of 2017) is 6.2%:
Broken down by type, newly constructed properties have risen by 5.7% in price and resale properties by 6.3% annually.
When compared to the previous quarter, we also see an average upward sloping trend:
A positive trend for the last trimester, at a slight tendency to increase “speed”. The table below summarises the data:
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Quarterly variation
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Annual variation
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Average index
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1.4
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6.2
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New construction
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2.1
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5.7
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Resale properties
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1.3
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6.3
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These price increases took place based on an increased number of total sale operations, which is reassuring since it implies a broad market advance. The total purchase operations for April 2018 were 161,444, a 20.8% annual increase from 2017:
The distribution of buyers by nationality was: British (14.59%), German (7.85%), French (7.64%), Belgian (6.83%), Swedish (6.57%), Italian (5.77%)
Remember, this is for the whole of Spain. The map below shows the breakdown by community, where you can see the Malaga province (mainly Costa del Sol) has had intense activity:
Prices are increasing at a faster rate than in previous trimesters. Also, the leaders of this increase are not anymore the northern provinces and big cities (apart from the 2 ever present Madrid and Barcelona), which suggests that foreign buyers are probably fueling this activity, contributing 13.11% of total purchases in Spain and an extravagant 30.57% in Malaga province. Despite uncertainties from Brexit, it seems that the European nationalities mentioned above are feeling confident.
In coclusion, we would like to see this trend continuing positively, albeit perhaps at a cooler pace. This would mean a more sustainable recovery. At per the latest ttrimester, it seems that the prices are increasing at a slightly slower pace – we would expect perhaps another trimester of cooler increases (the traditionally quieter summer months), before a resumption of the previous percentage increases.
Thanks for reading and please contact us if you have any questions, or visit our Costa del Sol properties website for more statistics: hbcostadelsolproperties.com