Spanish home sales in the first quarter were the highest they have been since the market turned the corner towards recovery in 2014, and growing foreign demand contributed to the increase, led by the British.
There were 128,990 Spanish home sales inscribed in the Land Register in the first quarter of the year, an increase of 13.4%, according to the latest property market report just released by the Association of Spanish Property Registrars, known locally as the Registradores.
“This volume of quarterly sales was the highest in the last thirty eight quarters, and you would have to go back to the third quarter of 2008 to find a bigger figure,” explain the Registradores in their latest report.
Foreign demand hit a high of 16,833 purchases in Q1, up by 13.2% compared to the same period last year. Spanish property is clearly still seen as a good investment by buyers from all over the world, led by the British.
Despite the increase in buyers, as a percentage of the overall Spanish housing market foreign demand remained at 13% of the market due to a slightly bigger increase in local demand.
Foreign demand by nationality
UK nationals purchased more homes in Spain than any other foreign nationality in Q1 2018, with 2,451 acquisitions in the period, followed by the Germans with 1,316, and the French on 1,290. As a result, the UK’s share of the foreign market was 14%, followed by Germany and France with just above 8% each. So even after Brexit, the UK market is still almost double the next biggest market, and bigger than Russia, China, and Italy combined. That said, 44% of buyers came from the “rest of the world” in a sign of the increasing global diversification of demand for property in Spain.
