The rise in the number of Spanish property sales in November indicates that the market is on the steady road of recovery, even though the number of property transactions is still a long way off reaching pre-crisis figures.
In November 34,918 property transactions took place in Spain, an increase of 7.3% compared with the same period the year before, according to the General Council of Notaries.
There was a strong rise in apartment sales, registering a year-on-year increase of 6.2% and more than double the increase registered in the previous month. Second-hand apartment sales grew by 12.2% whilst the number of new apartment sales decreased by 18.6%, to represent the tenth consecutive month of declines.
The number of individual family home sales also grew in November, by 11.4%; the ninth consecutive month that transactions have grown by 10% or more.
The number of new mortgage loans in November reached 25,681, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%; however seasonally adjusted figures show that increase to be nearer 2.4%. Home mortgages accounted for 16,404 loans transactions, an increase of 16.7% from the same period in 2014, representing an accumulation of 23 consecutive months of rises.
The average value of a mortgage loan was €144,223, according to El Mundo, 5.5% more than the same period the year before. However the average house price, per square metre, decreased by 1.1% (year-on-year) to €1,219; this decline is due to apartment prices dropping by 0.6% and individual family homes by 0.8%.
The average price of a second-hand apartments fell by 0.7% to €1,320, year-on-year, whereas the price of new apartments grew by 5.9% per square metre to €1,666.
So with house sales up but property price struggling to move in the right direction what can we expect for 2016? Well according to CBRE, the international real estate consultants, in their 2016 Trends report (Tendencias 2016) the Spanish crash is over and the Spanish property market will 'take off' this year.
Property prices are forecast to rise and there will be as many as 250,000 new property developments. The report, based on a survey of more than 100 high-level executives in the housing industry revealed that 83% of them thought the market had bottomed out, compared with only 46% last year.
