Home sales are stabilising, says Council of Notaries

THE sale of homes in Spain dropped by 10.9 per cent in January in comparison with the same time last year, according to reports from El Economista, to a total of 21,320 transactions, in conjunction with the most recent data from the General Council of Notaries.

However, the notaries stated that “despite the drop in the monthly figures, the data reflects a stabilisation in home sales.”

By type of dwelling, apartment sales showed a year-on-year reduction of 11.5 per cent, mainly due to the sharp drop in sales of new apartments (-31.8 per cent), while sales of secondhand apartments fell by 7.6 per cent, year-on-year, and sales of individual family homes reduced by 8.4 per cent.

With regard to prices, the average price per square metre of the homes purchased in January was €1,234, which represents a decrease of 6 per cent over the month of January 2014. This reduction is due both to the drop in price of apartments (-5.6 per cent year-on-year), as well as to the reduction in the price of family homes (-6.4 per cent).

Within the category of apartments, the price per square metre for secondhand apartments stood at €1,347 (-3.2 per cent year-on-year), while the price of new apartments plummeted by -12.5 per cent, year-on-year, to €1,624 per square metre.

In January there were also 5,230 transactions on other types of real estate (-20.1 per cent year-on-year), of which 37 per cent of the transactions related to land or building plots. The average price per square metre of these transactions reached €167 (+9.9 per cent).

The number of mortgage loans for the acquisition of a property increased by 9.9 per cent in January, to 9,657 loans granted, due mainly to the increase in the granting of loans for the acquisition of a dwelling (+11.4 per cent). The average value of the mortgage loans for the acquisition of a home reached €126,989 (+9.2 per cent) and the average capital loaned for the rest of the real estate transactions amounted to €164,838 (+0.8 per cent).

In addition, mortgage loans earmarked for construction registered growth of 21.8 per cent in January, year-on-year, to 291 new loans. The average value of these loans was €256,381, which represents a year-on-year decline of 5.6 per cent, due to the sharp drop in the average capital loaned for the construction of buildings other than housing (-58.8 per cent).