Last year, Russians purchased 1,278 residential properties in Spain. More than half of this number, or 54%, were committed in Valencia. This autonomous community is ahead of other territories, such as Catalonia (21%) and Andalusia (15.3%).
On the other hand, regions such as the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands barely exceeded 4% in total. The first archipelago took a share of 2.7%, and the second accounted for 1.4% of transactions.
In Madrid, the share of transactions did not reach 2%, and in five other popular communities, there were no purchases at all. These are the autonomous communities of Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura, Galicia, and La Rioja.
The "Statistical Yearbook of the Real Estate Register for 2021" from the Association of Registrars of Real Estate, Commercial and Movable Property of Spain (Registradores) shows that last year sales of Spanish housing to Russian citizens increased by 9.9% year-on-year.
However, sales were 36.5% below the pre-pandemic level.
According to Registradores, the number of home sales in Spain by Russians tended to increase until 2014 – the events known as the "annexation of Crimea".
By that time, there were 3,067 transactions per year. In 2015, there was a noticeable decline in sales. Although the market was slowly recovering until 2020, the pandemic had halted its development.
It is more expected, the report notes, that the improvement of this situation in 2021 ended in 2022 due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and international sanctions.