Resale housing market slowdown in Malaga

The resale market in Malaga province is showing signs of running out of steam. Nine months is enough time to draw reliable conclusions from property sales statistics and, in the case of the area which includes the Costa del Sol, these point to a slowdown in the resale market segment, which has dominated the recent real estate cycle.

Between January and September this year, some 8,767 transactions involving resale properties were registered in the province, a mere 1.5% more than in the same period last year. This near-zero growth in pre-owned homes contrasts sharply with the strong performance in new-builds. Sales of this latter type of property increased by 23.7% compared to the first nine months of 2024, reaching 8,909 deals. The market share in new housing sales now stands at 32.9% of all real estate transactions signed in Malaga.

The main real estate portals have been highlighting the reasons for this slowdown in resales. First, there is a supply shortage after several years of unbridled activity in the used housing market. This lack of stock is causing prices to continue rising unchecked. In turn, this makes homeownership inaccessible to increasingly larger segments of Malaga's population.

Adding together the slowdown in sales of used housing and the growth in new-builds gives the overall picture of Malaga's property market between January and September: 27,676 sales transactions, representing a 7.7% increase compared to the same period in 2024. This is practically half the growth recorded nationally (14.4%) and regionally (15.9%), meaning that Malaga is no longer the driving force behind the real estate boom. In fact, it is the Andalusian province with the lowest growth rate: its 7.7% contrasts sharply with the 32% growth in Almeria and the 19% growth in Seville and Jaen.

This cooling-off in the resale market seems to be starting to be felt at the national level as well, since sales of this type of housing grew by only 2% in September. However, this trend is not yet reflected in the year-to-date figures, as sales of pre-owned apartments continue to show increases of 11% across Spain and 12% in the rest of Andalucía between January and September.

If subsidised housing properties (VPOs) are not built, there can be no sales: this simple reasoning is reflected in the statistics on real estate transactions, with a further decline in the sale of subsidised housing. In the first nine months of this year, 836 VPO apartments were sold in Malaga province, averaging fewer than 100 transactions per month. In other words, of every 100 homes sold in Malaga, only three are classed as social housing.