According to a study by Lucas Fox, Spain has seen a robust rebound in sales, prices, and mortgage lending this year, returning to pre-pandemic growth.
“Part of the significant recovery this year was due to last year’s ‘hangover’ when many people were unable to buy a home, a factor that is expected to become less significant over time. Despite this, the recovery is progressing more aggressively than anyone could have predicted in the darkest months of the first half of 2020,” explains Lucas Fox.
The Spanish luxury property market seems to only benefit from the pandemic, as this market offers many advantages for those looking to purchase housing in an environment adapted to new requirements: the climate in Spain is one of the most favourable in Europe, good infrastructure, very high life quality and a large stock of exclusive homes. As a result, the country is becoming an ideal option for international buyers.
According to the Spanish Association of Notaries, 490,113 houses were sold in 2020; the drop compared to 2019 was only 14.6%. To better understand the scale of this data, suffice it to say that after the economic crisis, sales fell much more: by 34% in 2008 alone. In other words, the coronavirus turned out to be less harmful to the market than the “housing bubble” that burst 15 years ago. “It is clear that the pandemic hurt the market, but an almost instant recovery followed it,” the consulting company said in a statement.
“As expected, this year, we have seen a meteoric rise in deals in April and May. It is an annual increase of 234% and 125%, respectively. Not only that, sales are up 8% from 2019, a pre-pandemic benchmark that allows us to demonstrate that the economic recovery is well underway. Sales were also 6% higher than in 2018.”