Number of foreigners buying and selling homes in Spain up by 2% despite the housing crisis

In the first six months of the year, there almost 70,000 such property transactions, close to an all-time record, and British nationals were the group involved in the most sales and purchase transactions

Edurne Martínez

Madrid

Wednesday, 16 October 2024, 15:18

The number of foreigners buying and selling homes in Spain increased by 2% in the first half of the year, new data shows.

The increase comes amid a housing crisis and contrasts with a 10% decrease in the second half of last year, according to the figures from the national general council of notaries, who register property transactions.

In total, people from abroad bought and sold 69,412 homes in the first half of 2024, the highest level for two years and approaching the all-time high reached in the first half of 2022 when 73,467 transactions were recorded by foreigners. The figure is much higher than that recorded in 2016, the first year when the general council of notaries started recording statistics, and when sales in a six-month period did not exceed 45,000.

Compared to the total number of transactions in Spain, foreigners account for 20.4% of the market, with around one in five of the transactions, the data shows. Some 58% of foreign transactions were carried out by residents in Spain, some 4% more than last year. However, 42% of transactions are still linked to foreigners who do not live in Spain, according to the statistics.

And it is not just a matter for the big cities. In 14 of the 17 autonomous communities there has been an increase in foreign sales in the first half of the year. The ranking is led by La Rioja, where transactions increased by 24% compared to last year, followed by Extremadura (23%), Castilla y León (19%), Asturias (15%), the Basque Country (13%), Castilla-La Mancha (12%) and Galicia (12%).

Foreigners pay more than Spanish nationals

In fact, the most moderate increases - bearing in mind that higher levels were already being seen - were seen in the Madrid region (9% more than last year), Cantabria (7%), Navarra (6%), Murcia (5%), Aragon (2%), Valencia (1%) and Catalonia (1%). Only in three regions did the number of sales by foreigners decrease, which were the Canary Islands (12% less than a year ago), the Balearic Islands (-0.7%) and Andalucía (-0.2%).

It is worth noting that the average price per square metre for these transactions was 2,249 euros per square metre, some 7.4% more than in the first half of 2023. Non-resident foreigners continue to pay higher amounts for their homes (2,895/m2), 11% more than a year ago, than residents (1,734 euros/m2), 3.4% more than in 2023, and than Spanish nationals (1,659 euros/m2).

People from the United Kingdom were the group that carried out the most sales and purchase transactions in Spain, accounting for 8.4% of the total, reaching a figure of 5,864. After the British, there are Moroccans (7.9%) and Germans (6.8%).

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