Spanish home sales and prices rose in 2015, according to the latest figures from the notaries, in a sign that some sort of housing market recovery is underway.
The December and full year figures from the General Council of Notaries – just out – paint a picture of a market slowly recovering from a deep crisis. That’s good news in itself, but it doesn’t negate the effects of the crisis, which can still be seen all around. Some segments, in particular those that benefit from foreign demand, are recovering, but many others are still deep in the doldrums. So figures like these from the notaries, which aggregate all segments into national figures, conceal big differences between local markets. Not all areas and segments are heading in the same direction.
The notary figures are the most timely available, as they are based on sales witnessed by notaries each month, rather than sales inscribed in the property register a month or two later (published by the registrars and the National Institute of Statistics). They probably give us the best picture of what actually happened (at a national level) in 2015. So I’ll run through the main figures with a chart for each.
HOME SALESThere were a total of 401,236 homes sold last year (including subsidised housing), with sales of both flats and houses rising for the second year in a row. Sales are still less than half what they were in the last boom year of 2007, but we should not expect to return to the inflated sales levels of a speculative bubble. That said, the market is still depressed by normal standards, so there should still be room for more growth in sales in the coming years, assuming that economic growth continues.
Source: Mark Stücklin @ Spanish Property Insight
