In May 2022, more than 60,000 sale-purchase transactions for residential real estate were recorded. Thanks to this figure, the market secured a record that has not been broken since 2008 and confirmed that the Spanish property market has recovered from the pandemic. Now it faces new challenges.
The 1st challenge is the uneven distribution of recovery growth, both in speed and geography. According to a joint study by the real estate portal Tecnocasa and Pompeu Fabra University, the hottest local market regions in 2021 were Malaga, Almeria and Alicante.
Last year in Malaga there were 4 sales for every 100 transactions. This puts the region in 1st place in both the primary and secondary residential real estate markets. Almeria follows closely behind with 3 sales for every 100. Alicante, Madrid, the Balearic Islands, Cadiz, and Tarragona make up the rest of the leaderboard.
In general, the best performance in the country were shown by the regions of the Mediterranean coast, as well as the Autonomous Community of Madrid. The least dynamic housing markets were recorded in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula, in particular, in Galicia, Castile and Leon, and Extremadura.
Ourense registered a rate of less than 1 sale per 100 transactions (approximate ratio of 0.92). Followed by Zamora, Lugo, Teruel, Leon and Cáceres. These regions demonstrate the lowest rates of real estate turnover in both primary and secondary markets.
The provinces of Guadalajara and Toledo showed slightly higher dynamics. In these regions, the turnover was 2.68 sales per 100 transactions. These results are explained by the influence of their geographical location: proximity to the country's main real estate markets, including the community of Madrid.
The lowest real estate turnover recorded in Barcelona
It is worth noting the 10 most populated cities in Spain showed some downtime. In this context, we are talking about the period of sale of a property since the moment it is offered in the market as well as about the presence of healthy market dynamics and demand volumes.
According to this indicator, the leading positions were occupied by the capital Alicante, and Murcia took the leading position in terms of real estate turnover in the secondary housing market. The leaders in the primary market in terms of turnover were Malaga and Valencia. Barcelona, unexpectedly, took the last place in both market segments.
The extremely low performance of the market in the Catalan capital was due to several reasons, including: high tax burden, shortage of land for residential construction, a decrease in the number of investors in the market. Most people invested money only in property-to-rent-out.
The joint report indicates that if the observed dynamics of the Spanish real estate market continue, it will take 42 years to sell the entire available stock of residential properties in the secondary market of the region. And this is not the most deplorable indicator. It will take Barcelona 351 years to sell the entire inventory of new real estate.
Returning to national figures, according to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics of Spain, in the first 5 months of 2022, about 273,000 property sales transactions were registered in the country, which is 53,000 more than a year earlier.