Spanish property sales rose by 14.6 per cent last year to reach a 9-year high

The 13th of February the provisional residential property sales figures for December 2017 were made public by the central statistics unit of the Spanish government, and the results show a continuation of the upturn in activity in the real estate market which characterised the year as a whole.

During the month a total of 32,211 transactions were inscribed at property registry offices throughout the country, representing an increase of 9.2 per cent in comparison with the last month of 2016, and there were higher totals in almost all of Spains 17 regions. The most significant rises were those of 44.4 per cent in Castilla-La Mancha, 32.5 per cent in Aragon and 31 per cent in Asturias, while the only slight decreases were reported in the Balearic Islands, Catalunya, La Rioja and the Basque Country.

But, as ever, a far more representative picture of the health of the property market is painted by a longer-term view of the figures, and for this reason the overall total for the whole of last year is arguably a more telling statistic. During the whole of 2017 there was a 14.6 per cent rise in the number of sales and purchases registered, and in this case all of the regional totals also went up, with increases of between 5.4 per cent (in the Basque Country) and 24.7 per cent (in Castilla-La Mancha).

Most significantly of all, though, the annual total of 464,423 sales is the highest in a calendar year since the market bubble burst in 2008, and represents a continuation of the bounce-back which began after a low of 312,000 was reached in 2012.

Source: Spanish News Today, February 2018