Mini-apartments with an area of less than 30 square meters account for only 0.3% of the total real estate market in Murcia, which is more than twice lower than the national average. In addition, only 11.8% of residential properties in the region have an area of 30 to 60 square meters.
The largest market share is occupied by large-sized offers from 60 to 100 square meters. They account for 50.8% of the market. Up to 31.7% of the market accounts for housing from 100 to 150 squares. Super-large objects, from 150 square meters, occupy 5.3%.
In the eponymous capital of Murcia, mini-apartments with an area of less than 30 squares account for a slightly larger share than the regional average of 0.5%. Similarly, 13.5% falls on 30-60 square meters, 46.1% on 60-100 square meters, 33.7% on 100-150 square meters and 6.1% on 150 squares or more.
What is happening at the national level?
According to the Idealista portal, collected on the basis of ads that were posted on their platform, for the first quarter of 2023, 0.8% of ads across Spain concerned apartments with an area of less than 30 square meters. An area of up to 60 square meters accounted for 20.4% of ads. The majority of objects, 51.2%, were expected to fall on objects with an area of 60 to 100 square meters. The segment of 100-150 squares and more than 150 squares accounted for a share of 21.7% and 6%, respectively.
According to Francisco Inareta, Idealista's press secretary, the phenomenon of mini-apartments is very weak on the market, despite its high attractiveness to buyers and sufficient media coverage as a must-have for the purchase of goods. Whether it's buying or renting, this type of housing is vanishingly small in the total supply share.
We can assume a number of reasons why this happens. First of all, this is the lack of new construction. The largest market players today are wealthy buyers and foreigners. The local population, the townsfolk, are increasingly being cut off from the market due to prices and interest rates on loans. Foreigners and wealthy consumers are not interested in mini-housing. For them, the very objects from 60 squares are of interest.
The secondary market also cannot offer a rich set of small apartments, since such apartments were not popular on the market until the last few years. As a result, the ads for sale mainly concern housing with a large area. Only in two regions of Spain, the offer of apartments less than 30 square meters occupies more than 1% of the market. We are talking about Madrid (1.4%) and Catalonia (1.2%).
The lowest indicator is observed in La Rioja, where we see a share of only 0.1% of the entire market. Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha and Asturias are slightly better than La Rioja in this volume - 0.2% in all three cases. This is followed by Navarre, Aragon, Murcia and Extremadura, which have shares of 0.3% each. Galicia, the Balearic Islands and Castile y Leon boast a 0.4% share. Andalusia, the community of Valencia and Baskonia differ by a share of 0.6%, and the Canary Islands are the leader — 0.9%.
Apartments with an area of less than 30 square meters do not account for a significant share either in the regions or in large and metropolitan cities of Spain. You can only single out Barcelona with its share of 1.7% of the total market. As you might guess, more than 50% of goods fall on objects with an area of 60 to 100 square meters.