Every 5th Spaniard plans to purchase a residential property in the next 5 years. These are the main data of the report "Radiografía del mercado de la vivienda 2021-2022" published this Monday by Fotocasa, a figure which is 3 percentage points higher than in February 2021.
In particular, the real estate portal notes, 8% future buyers plan to do this within 2 years (6% in the previous forecast from February 2021) and 14% within 2 to 5 years (13% in February 2021). These figures, they say, reflect "greater confidence in the real estate market."
"Over the past year, there were 16% of private persons in the buy-and-sell real estate market who either bought a home or tried and failed," they add. However, Fotocasa emphasizes that "in Spain, 84% of people over 18 show no interest in purchasing a real estate unit at the moment." Thus, at the moment, expectations for purchasing a home in Spain are at a high level, despite the fact that there is a slight decrease compared to August 2021.
“Even with all properties bought in the previous 2021 (more than half a million properties) we find that there is still a very latent demand in society to buy,” says Maria Matos, director of research at Fotocasa. The company emphasizes that "the big challenge for the real estate sector is to be flexible and manage all this demand."
"In the case of used housing, the outlook may be bleak as the existing supply gradually shrinks. These aspects contribute to the fact that the market becomes tight, and prices continue to rise, forcing people to delay purchasing a home more than they would like," adds Matos.
8% of people aged 18-24 who are not looking to buy a home plan to purchase it in less than 2 years, twice as many as in 2021. On the other hand, in the medium term (2 to 5 years before making a purchase), this figure reaches almost 1/3: 29% of this age segment (compared to 22% in February 2021). "Overall, 37% of young people plan to make a purchase in the next 5 years," they say.
Similarly, 16% of people aged 25 to 34 who have not made any real estate purchases in the past 12 months plan to purchase a home in the next 2 years. This figure increases by 10 percentage points when it comes to the medium term (2-5 years), reaching 26%. "Overall, 43% plan to purchase a residential property," Fotocasa explained.
In the context of the autonomous communities, the real estate portal notes more significant signs of stagnation in Madrid and Catalonia, while highlighting the growth in Valencia and Andalusia, where growth showed 8% and 24% respectively.