CBRE forecasts 5% price increase for Spanish property this year

Home values are expected to rise by 5.9% this year, with sales up 20%, according to CBRE.

Real estate experts CBRE expect house prices in Spain to rise by an average of five per cent in 2016 as increases in sales and new build construction drive values upwards.

The CBRE’s recent Real Estate Market Outlook has outlined a series of positive indicators for Spain’s residential housing market, finding that more homes will be sold, more new houses will be built and the volume of unsold properties will reduce significantly over the course of the year…

However, the headline from the report is the forecast by CBRE that average property prices will increase by 5.9 per cent on average this year, peaking at 6.3 per cent in the third quarter.

In terms of sales volumes, the CBRE report projects a 20 per cent increase in the number of transactions in 2016 compared to last year, heaping further weight to the growing claims that Spain’s property market is firmly out of the woods.

One area of the property market that has not yet enjoyed such a positive upturn has been the new build sector, but CBRE is confident that as many as 60,000 new homes will be completed this year, increasing from the 45,000 properties built in 2015, but still way below previously sustainable levels of 160,000 new homes per year.

Overall, however, the trend is one of near-universal positivity and growth, with the traditional property strongholds of Madrid, Barcelona and the Costa del Sol set to be joined by Bilbao, Valencia and Málaga as demand for property swells in these cities.

The CBRE report does outline some words of caution, namely Spain’s slightly decreasing population, nervousness among buyers and the still-fragile economic recovery of the nation as reasons to temper the optimism, but this report – allied to previous studies and statistics by leading institutes in the Spanish real estate sector – merely adds to the growing belief that Spanish property is once again a safe and sensible bet, whether for investment or enjoyment purposes.