Notaries report a minimal property price rise in February

The latest set of data regarding the residential property market to come from Spain’s notaries was published the 10th of April, reporting year-on-year increases of just 3.2 per cent in sales figures but a far more significant 10.6 per cent in mortgage activity in February 2019 across the country as a whole.

These latest data would appear to confirm the impression given by the figures for the three previous months, namely that the level of activity in the real estate market of Spain is perhaps stabilising after a long period of significant growth. In November, the notaries’ revised figures show a year-on-year increase in sales figures of just 2 per cent, and this was followed by upward movements of just 3.9 per cent and 1.6 per cent in December and January, whereas as recently as last summer double-digit increases were still the norm.

During the second month of this year, according to the notaries’ provisional figures, the number of sales and purchases finalised reached 45,120, continuing a general upward trend which began in early 2013, and the average price paid for units of housing rose by 0.7 per cent to 1,373 euros per square metre. This again continues a six-year upward trend after the crash which began in early 2008, although as ever it is worth remembering that this is a notoriously hard figure to analyse: variations in average price are not necessarily due not to any nationwide trend, as they could be due to more properties being sold in different regions of the country where prices are higher or lower, distorting the national average.

Meanwhile, the number of mortgages constituted on housing purchases during February was 21,765, while the average loan capital was down by 1.4 per cent at 131,492 euros, the first decrease in either set of data for ten months. Again, this may indicate that more of the sales activity is taking place in less expensive regions, while in those where the market recovery started earliest, such as the Balearics, Madrid and Catalunya, sales figures appear to be levelling out slightly.

From the figures, it can be deduced that 48.2 per cent of all purchases were financed by mortgage loans in February, the figure still has not reached 50 per cent since 2010, and that in these cases the mortgages accounted for an average of 75.7 per cent of the sale price.

Source: Spain News Today, April 2019