The Spanish housing market looks ahead to 2021 with solid fundamentals and a positive outlook. It is estimated that demand for housing will grow by 5% in 2021, which will lead to the sale of about half a million houses. This information is contained in the CBRE report "Residential real estate market in Spain 2021", which made an assessment of the sector over the past year.
Samuel Población, National Residential and Land Real Estate Director at CBRE in Spain, is optimistic about the development of the sector: "We are leaving behind a year marked by a pandemic in order to meet 2021 with a favorable outlook for the Spanish housing market. The sector continues to have strong fundamentals, high investor interest, growing concentration and capitalization, with increasing demand for housing, both for purchase and for rent, which predicts a positive prospects for the short and medium term. In addition, the housing sector is one of the most sustainable in terms of financing, both traditional and alternative.
In terms of demand (for both new and secondary property), the number of real estate sales in 2020 (487,000 houses) decreased by 14.5% compared to the previous year: secondary property sales fell by 17%, while new housing sales increased by 7.3%. Madrid (67,000 houses sold) and Barcelona (48,800 houses sold) accounted for 24% of sales. Meanwhile, demand from foreigners accounted for 11.3% (47,000 units) of the total number of houses sold, which is 25% less than in 2019.
On the supply side, the number of completed units increased by 10% in 2020, with more than 86,000 housing units, higher than the average of the last seven years (61,000 units).
The number of new construction permits decreased by 20% compared to 2019 (85,000 units) due to the impact of COVID-19 and the temporary delay/suspension of some projects, both under implementation and in the start-up stage. The decrease in the number of permits for the construction of new buildings was 27% in Madrid, and 24% in Barcelona, to 16,100 and 8,500 units, respectively. CBRE estimates that in 2021, the number of permits for the construction of new housing will be 75,000-85,000, which is very similar to the level of 2019.