Is the Property Sector Heading for Another Boom?

According to the latest report from the Property Registry Statistics office, property prices in Spain went up by 2.65% annually at the end of the first quarter and 1.88% just in the previous three months.

Experts now do not suppose that the tendency is changing for the better; they are certain that it is.

Figures have revealed that during the property crisis, house prices in Spain on average dropped by approximately 31%.

Property purchases

The registry office has also revealed that between January and March this year, a total of 90,534 new property purchases were registered with them. This is an increase of 16.2% just from the previous quarter (Oct-Dec 2014) and 9% more than during the same period 12 months ago.

Second-hand properties saw their sales go up 23.8% during the first three months of the year, although the purchase of new builds have barely reached 22,500 units.

The greatest number of property purchases were registered in Andalucía (17,420), followed by Madrid (14,686), Cataluña (14,282) and the Valencia Region (12,453).

And, property purchases rose from the first quarter of 2015 to the previous quarter in 14 of Spain’s autonomous regions.

In the course of the last 12 months, a total of 326,440 transactions were registered, which is 7,512 more than the number recorded for the whole of 2014.

Property purchases by foreigners

On the other hand, property purchases made by foreigners dropped from 13.8% in the last quarter of 2014 to 12.2% in the first quarter of 2015. Nevertheless, statistics showed that in absolute terms, purchases by foreigners actually went up, but the percentage attributed to this sector fell due to the fact that the number of purchases in general also increased. It was also noted that the first quarter of the year is usually the quietest for foreign buyers.

On a year-upon-year basis, however, the number of property purchases carried out by foreigners rose by 8.9% from the same period in 2014.

At the top of the list of foreign buyers are the Brits, with 17.7% of the total. They are followed by the French (10.1%), Germans (7.7%), Belgians (7.4%), Swedes (5.4%) and the Russians (5%).

Deeds in lieu of foreclosure

During the first three months of the year there were a total of 4,041 exchanges of properties in order to cancel a debt with the bank. The majority of them took place in Cataluña (1,171), followed by Andalucía (862), the Valencia Region (592) and Murcia (293).

Almost 90% of these involved Spaniards, while 12% involved foreigners. The Moroccans faced the greatest number of property losses (19%), followed by the Ecuadorians (18.59%), Rumanians (11.97%), Columbians (4.49%) and the British (3.85%).

Source: www.cincodias.com