Malaga province home sales drop by 10% in first quarter of 2026

Malaga has seen a slowdown in the sale of homes, but there is an explanation behind this trend.

In the first quarter of 2026, there were 8,837 home sales in Malaga, a 9.3% year-on-year decrease compared to the 9,741 sales between January and March of 2025. This decline is significantly greater than that registered for Spain as a whole, which fell by 2.6%, to a total of 178,473 sales.

However, it's worth noting that in Malaga, the number of sales in the first quarter of 2026 is still higher than in 2024, when just over 8,000 homes were sold. Therefore, the drop at the start of 2026 is partly attributable to the fact that the increase in the number of sales exceeded 20% in the first quarter of 2025.

In any case, Malaga, of the provinces with the largest real estate markets, has suffered the greatest decline. Only Madrid comes close, where the number of sales has fallen by 8.3%. Meanwhile, in Alicante, the drop in sales is approaching 8%.

The Costa del Sol remains the fifth province in Spain in terms of real estate sales, behind only Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante and Valencia. Malaga home sales exceed those in entire regions like Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León.

Furthermore, it is the Andalusian province with the highest number of sales, ahead of Seville, where the figure is just under 7,000, although, in Seville, the number of sales rose by nearly 6% in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. Malaga accounts for one in four home purchases in Andalucía.

March played a major role in the behaviour of real estate transactions in Malaga in the first quarter, with sales falling by 13.2% year-on-year, barely exceeding 3,000.

Idealista spokesperson Francisco Iñareta said that, across Spain, home sales have fallen for the third consecutive month year-on-year, leading him to believe that there is "stabilisation of buyer appetite at the national level".

"The high prices of housing, especially in the most dynamic markets, and the increased cost of financing appear to be responsible for the withdrawal of demand and point to a stabilisation of prices in the medium term," Iñareta stated.

Across Spain, sales have fallen by around 2.2% year-on-year, to 61,295.

Returning to the analysis of the quarterly figures, we find that, by type, sales of new homes fell by 5.25% in Spain year-on-year, to 40,438. Meanwhile, sales of second-hand homes declined by 1.75%, to 138,035.

In Malaga province, sales of new homes fell by 6%, while sales of second-hand homes dropped by almost 11%, to 5,663.