January home sales in Spain rose more than 26% on last year

The numbers are good, in terms of prices, mortgages and volume.

The positive news stories for the Spanish property market just keep rolling in: latest data from Spain’s notaries has revealed that the number of property transactions recorded in January was 26.6% higher than the same month in 2015…

The point-of-sale data used by the notaries is widely regarded as the most accurate measure of the state of Spain’s housing sector. And data published last week shows that the number of homes that changed hands in January was 27,568, which is a substantial increase in the space of a year.

Average property prices have also continued their steady and sustainable climb, too. The data revealed that homes in January sold for an average 2% more than for the same month a year prior, and this trend was evident in all property types and most regions.

According to the notaries, the average price paid for a square metre of Spanish real estate in January was €1,303.

On to mortgages, and similarly encouraging trends were revealed. The data showed a 30% increase in the number of mortgages approved, totalling 12,908. The only slight fly in the ointment was the fact that the average loan capital in January was €124,829, which represented a year-on-year decrease of 3.1%. However, this is the first time in nine straight months that the value of the average mortgage has fallen against last year’s equivalent month, and many analysts expect that this is just a statistical anomaly.

Finally, the data from the notaries showed that 43.1% of all property sales in Spain in January were financed via a mortgage, with the average proportion of total purchase price lent standing at 76.1%, which suggests that would-be buyers in Spain currently need a deposit of around 25% of the property’s value in order to secure a mortgage – which, again, is a rather healthy reflection on the state of the market.