I saw this interesting article in Idealista about home purchases in Spain by foreignors.
The number of houses bought by non-Spanish people in Spain exceeded 60,800 in 2017, breaking the record set 10 years ago, according to official statistics. The drop in the number of purchases by Brits thanks to the Brexit effect was offset by Germans, French and Belgians. Holiday homes remain the main attraction for foreigners, with Alicante and Santa Cruz de Tenerife having the greatest relative weight in terms of sales figures. Ex-pat buyers prefer houses of more than 100 m2 (1076 sq ft) and they are mortgaged more and more.
The purchase of houses by foreigners has not stopped growing in the country since 2009, when it reached its lowest level. Levels went from barely 16,000 property transactions then to more than 60,000 last year, the first time in history, according to the Real Estate Registry Statistics Yearbook of the Association of Property Registrars.
In spite of this new record, the purchase of homes in Spain by foreigners lost a relative weight on the total number of operations, going from 13.25% in 2016 to 13.11% in 2017, but consolidated the importance of transactions by citizens of other nationalities. "Foreign demand has become one of the factors that has contributed most to the recovery of the Spanish real estate market," say the registrars.
The British, the only ones who have gone down
By nationality, us British are losing relative weight although there’s still a big difference from other nationalities. The Brexit effect has caused Brits to buy fewer houses than in 2016, with fewer than 9,200 transactions, and a 10% drop compared with the previous year, when they set a record.
This decline in transactions by the British has been offset by the other nationalities, all of which have grown. The French recorded nearly 5,300 purchases and increased their weight to 8.6% of total foreign purchases. They are followed by the Germans (7.7%), with around 4,750 purchases; Belgians (6.4%), with 3,900 operations; and then Swedes (6.3%), Italians (5.7%) and Romanians (5.3%).
"These nationalities are exactly the same as the ones that have been occupying the top positions in recent years, with a remarkable consistency in the demand for housing in Spain in terms of nationalities," the registrar's report points out. "Everything seems to indicate that there may be a certain degree of recovery or, in any case, that levels with the British demand will be upheld, which could contribute positively to the favourable real estate cycle in which housing demand is found."
Properties by the sea, the preferred choice for foreigners
In all the autonomous communities on the Mediterranean coast and both archipelagos, the number of house purchases by non-Spaniards has increased. The Canary Islands (31.3%), the Balearic Islands (31.2%) and the Valencian Community (26%) were the main places they invested in 2017. Of these, the Canary Islands was the most popular, where the relative weight increased. That’s followed by Murcia (18.7%), Andalusia (13.8%) and Catalonia (12.9%).
"All these places have a high degree of coastal tourist attraction, which fits perfectly with the structure of nationalities demanding housing in Spain over the last few years," according to the registry.
In the provinces of Alicante (40.76%) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (40.72%), the weight of foreign purchases is almost equal to that of Spanish nationals. They are followed by the Balearic Islands (31.2%), Girona (30.7%), Malaga (29.6%), Las Palmas (22.3%), Murcia (18.7%), Almeria (16.8%), Tarragona (14.4%) and Castellón (14%).
In Andalusia and the Valencian Community, British, Swedish and Belgian ex-pats were the ones who bought the most houses. In Catalonia they were French, Chinese and Italian; in the Balearic Islands, German, British and Italian; and in the Canary Islands, Italians, British and Germans....
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