Prices of Spanish property in third quarter rose by 6.6%, data shows

The third quarter of last year was, like the eight quarters before it, a very encouraging time for the Spanish property market.

Spanish notary data published this week has analysed the third quarter of the property market last year and found that average home values for the three months between June 30 and September 30 were 6.6% higher than the same period in 2016…

This third quarter improvement in property prices was matched in sales activity too, with the 118,951 homes sold during those three months representing a 13.5% rise on 2016.

This data reflects other more granular data, such as monthly comparisons, and also follows annual trends – across the board, home sales are increasing in Spain, and the value of property is steadily inching upwards.

Notary data tends to be a little more conservative than official government data or market data, but is usually the most accurate bellwether of activity because the notaries only record finalised home transactions.

By comparing quarters, the statistics are interesting in that they help to show which times of the year are the busiest for the Spanish property industry. The third quarter is, alongside the second quarter, the most popular time of year to purchase Spanish property, the data shows.

The notary data also revealed that prices and property sales volumes have risen quarter-over-quarter for the last nine quarters, which is three years in layperson’s language.

Another interesting snippet of info to emerge from the notaries were mortgage statistics. In the third quarter last year, the number of mortgages approved was 52,297, which represents 44% of all home sales. That means 56% of properties were bought without a mortgage in the third quarter.

The average loan capital on a typical mortgage in the third quarter of 2017 was €134,261, which is an increase of 2% on 2016.