2.7% More Andalusian Homes Bought In November 2019 Than Previous Year

Interest in Andalusian homes up in November

Regional stats

The results are in, as they say, for another month. In terms of total property purchases, we now know – thanks to Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) data – that 441 (or 2.7%) more Andalusian homes were bought up last November compared to the same month in 2018.

In the month to 30^th November, a total of 8,391 residential real estate transactions were made in the southern Spanish Autonomous Community of Andalucía. This number was marginally down from the 8,655 property sales registered in October, however it was a strong improvement on the preceding month of September, when 7,307 homes changed hands.

As a proportion of the region’s registered populace, this figure represents 1.26 property transactions per 1,000 inhabitants and is the second highest region in terms of sales volume per capita in Spain behind Valencia (1.51 transactions per 1,000 inhabitants).

This latest retrospective sales figure means the year-to-date total in respect of Andalusian homes stands at 93,213. As predicted back in November, then, more than 100,000 Andalusian property sales will have been made in 2019 (once December’s data is compiled and published next month).

Spanish property market

Although Andalusian homes proved as popular as ever to buyers in this period, what about the rest of the country?

Well, according to the National Statistics Institute, Andalucía was one of just four regions in Spain to register a positive year-on-year purchasing increment. Extremadura (+7%), Aragón (+5.3%) and Murcia (+1.2%) were the other three.

The other 13 Autonomous Communities experienced worse Novembers for sales compared to 2018, with the most affected, La Rioja, the famous wine region in the north-east, over 25% down interannually.

The result of this large spread meant that the average year-on-year shift for property purchases in Spain as a whole was -9.3% for the month of November; a shade more than the -1.5% seen in October and an improvement on the -12% sales imbalance in September.

Is this significant?

Well, not exactly. In the first place, Spain is a country where property buying trends can be quite polarised. It’s clear that the Balearic Islands or the Costa del Sol are more dynamic markets than inland Castilla-La Mancha or the north-west Atlantic coast, for example, due to the disparity in their appeal to foreign buyers all year round; so buying trends inevitably waver.

It must also be noted that 2018 was an exceptional year for the Spanish property market. It feels like only yesterday that I announced that half a million properties would be sold in Spain by the end of 2018, meaning it would be a fiendish task to best that year's sales figures going forward.

The fact that transaction volumes remain consistently strong while sharp year-on-year sales increments have cooled off is a good sign for Spanish real estate. If sales activity spiked off the charts, there would be murmurings of a second housing boom (and, consequently, crash). If no-one were buying, quarterly house price increases would seem unjustified.

As it is, the Spanish property market is in a good place and early 2020 remains a good time to invest in Spanish bricks and mortar.

Sources:

https://www.ine.es/daco/daco42/etdp/etdp1119.pdf