The latest report published by the Council of Property Registrars has confirmed that foreigners are buying more property in Spain than ever.
In concrete, international investors acquired almost 48,000 properties in the last year, which is an increase of more than 13% from the previous 12 months.
The report also revealed that the British are still the top buyers of Spanish real estate, and make up 21% of the total of all purchases made by foreigners.
This calculates at approximately 10,000 homes bought by investors or tourists by a nationality whose relationship with the rest of the Europe is currently in doubt if the UK exits the EU. Business relationships and commercial deals may become a lot more difficult if Brexit does happen.
In nowhere near the same volume, the next top property-purchasing nationalities are the French, German and Swedes, who each make up between 6 and 7% of the total purchases made by foreign buyers. The Chinese represent around 4% of all purchases.
Total purchases: nationals + foreigners
And, as you can imagine, as the number of property purchases go up so too do house prices, especially in areas where foreign buyers tend to prefer.
The first quarter of 2016 closed with house prices rising 6.9% annually, slightly up on how much prices also increased at the end of 2015.
Between January and March 2016, a total of 100,000 properties were sold just in that quarter. This is the highest figure for the last 12 quarters, or the last three years, and the second highest figure for the last 20 quarters.
And, this rise in the number of house purchases has been registered across almost every region, as 16 autonomous regions saw the number of property sales go up for the same period from the previous year.
The majority of sales took place in the regions of Andalucía, Cataluña, Madrid and Valencia.
With such a good start to the year, it looks as though the sector could be in for its best year regarding property sales.
Source: www.elmundo.es
