Foreigners continued to actively buy housing in Spain. At the end of the third quarter of 2022, the number of real estate transactions with this category of buyers increased by 23% year-on-year. More specifically, according to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Development, in the third quarter of 2021, foreigners, both residents and non-residents, made 26,617 transactions, and a year later this number increased to 32,701 transactions.
Also, according to the Ministry, 16,880 transactions were made specifically for resident foreigners from July to September 2022, which is 16.35% more than in 2021 for the same period. At that time, 14,508 transactions were registered. Non-resident foreigners accounted for 15,821 transactions during the specified period - a 30.65% increase by the third quarter of 2021, when 12,109 real estate purchase transactions were recorded.
Neither the increase in interest rates nor the tightening of lending conditions, apparently, did not particularly affect foreign demand either in the third quarter or at the end of last year. Total home sales to foreigners, from January to September, reached 101,460 transactions, which is 44.31% more than in the first 9 months of 2021.
Investors' interest is growing in relation to Asturias, where the growth in the number of transactions exceeded 50% in the third quarter of 2022, the Canary Islands, where sales increased by almost 49% (2,808 transactions), and the Valencian community, where the growth was 36% (10,401 transactions). The decline in interest was recorded only in Cantabria, the Balearic Islands, Navarre and Castile-La Mancha.