ist destination and having established itself as a good «quiet bay» for the savings of international investors, the local real estate market has acquired a wide and wealthy customer base.
The premium housing segment of the country plays a special role in the growth foundation. It attracts the attention of both large investors and ordinary consumers and buyers of second homes equally well. We are talking about hundreds and thousands of wealthy buyers, individuals with large and super-large net worth at their disposal.
According to some data from market representatives, the average price of luxury housing in the country has increased by 8%. This indicator was mainly influenced by the sharp increase in demand in the past year, the number of transactions and their cost. In general, the main buyers of luxury housing are foreigners.
They also make the biggest deals on the market. Local demand not only stopped keeping up, but also began to decline in comparison with international demand. Within the framework of the latter, French citizens have become new key players. They were more interested than others in offers at a price of 1.5 million euros.
According to the profile of real estate, the most popular in the premium segment are objects with terraces, gardens, patios or common areas and leisure. After the pandemic, real estate with outdoor elements becomes much more attractive, so those objects that do not have them are the most sensitive to a decrease in price and an increase in the sale period.
Regionally, the most attractive regions are Catalonia, the provinces of Barcelona, Costa Brava, Costa Dorada and the Balearic Islands. In Barcelona, the focus was on Barcelona itself, Espluges de Llobregat, Sant Just Desvern, Valdoreix, Sant Cugat, Sitges and Sant Andreu de Llavaneres.
In Costa Brava we are talking about the districts of Begur, Cambrils, Cadaques, Calella, Empuriabrava, Llafranc, Pals, Tamariu and Tossa de Mar, and in Costa Dorada it is worth paying attention to the districts of Altafulla, Calafel, Comarruga, L'amella de Mar, Roda de Bar, Salou, Tarragona and Torredembarra.
In the Balearic Islands, the islands of Ibiza, Majorca and Menorca showed themselves best. They accounted for most of the foreign demand for premium real estate.
At the same time, it is predicted that 2023 will remain a «good year» for luxury market segments. While other sectors and segments will begin to stabilize or decline due to a decrease in demand, the elite segment will only continue to increase its attractiveness to a diverse foreign buyer.
There will also be an increase in the number of foreign tenants of luxury real estate who will want to retrain as owners. This is a wide audience of people, many of whom were originally just wealthy tourists. For them, there is an opportunity both to simply purchase a new elite object, and to buy out the one that they already rent.
Some forecasts indicate that in 2023 housing prices will remain stable in the market as a whole and will show a small but noticeable increase in the premium segment. Inflation and rising interest rates on lending will continue to have an impact. The international situation, both economic and political, will be an uncertain variable in the dynamics of market growth this year.