Despite rising inflation and destabilization of the Spanish economy in the last year and a half, the real estate sector is only strengthening thanks to the return of foreign investors, which began after the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the “Inmocoyuntura 2023” report prepared by the valuation company Euroval, international demand for Spanish housing has increased by 30% year on year in 2022. At the same time, domestic demand grew by only a meager 2.2%.
Since then, the situation has only worsened. An increasing share of the market began to go to foreigners, which caused a sharp response from the authorities, who took up legislative reforms that should reduce the influx of international buyers into the Spanish market.
Ferran Font, research director and spokesman for the Pisos.com platform, points out: “The figures confirm the great attractiveness of the Spanish property market, especially among Europeans. All this is happening against an extremely pronounced trend of declining purchases from national buyers. Every 2 out of 10 transactions occur with foreigners and these are the most expensive transactions on the market.”
While in relative terms, purchases by foreigners have not yet reached their peak, the last such peak was established in 2015, in absolute numbers we have a ratio of 133,211 homes sold in 2022 to 77,530 homes sold seven years ago.
The reasons for the observed trends are varied. It can be noted that foreigners are attracted by the resort image of Spain, the climate, and the diverse housing stock of premium properties. Even with their growth, prices are still quite modest in comparison with other leading global housing markets.
It is worth paying attention to the statistics for the regions of Spain. All autonomous communities of the country increased their figures for foreign demand compared to 2022. First place goes to the Valencian Community, where growth was 7.4%. It is followed by the Canary Islands (6.2%), Andalusia (3.2%), Madrid (2.7%), Murcia (2.7%) and Catalonia (2.5%). At a national level, the national average is 3.4%.
Ferrand Font concludes: “Despite this strong growth throughout the country, the Mediterranean coast is still Spain's busiest region. The three coastal autonomous communities account for 65% of all transactions carried out by foreigners. We are talking about Valencia (30%), Andalusia (21%) and Catalonia (14%).”