The Real Estate Registrar's Yearbook details the 2023 home buying and selling market. Foreigner deals are again showing excellent results, now accumulating for three consecutive years (2021-2023) with a strong increase in their importance in the national market after four years of decline (2017-2020) with the pandemic in the middle, although registrars emphasize that its share remains above 10% of total transactions since 2013.
And in 2023, foreigners accounted for 15% of total home purchases (up from 13.8% in 2022), exceeding 87,300 transactions. In 2022, at a lower percentage, they topped 88,800 transactions, their best year ever. “This situation shows the current strength of foreign demand in the real estate context,” the Registrars emphasize.
At this level of shopping, nationalities become increasingly diverse.
By nationality, Britons maintain their traditional lead (9.5%) with more than 8,100 transactions, but their relative weight in total foreign home purchases remains increasingly smaller. This year they fell by 1.54 percentage points. They are followed by the Germans (7.3%) - more than 6,200 and the French (6.7%) - more than 5,700, maintaining the top three nationalities, but they are also losing weight - by 2.2 percentage points. and by 0.32 p.p. less, respectively.
But this drop in the number of transactions of these three nationalities was offset by the increased importance that other nationalities, such as Moroccans, gained in importance, with 5.4% of purchases (0.24 p.p.); Belgians – 5.3% (0.11 p.p.) or Italians – 5.2% (0.61 p.p.).
“The good performance in the development of foreign home purchases in recent years has been partly due to the inclusion of new nationalities in home purchases in Spain , with those who have traditionally done so leading the results but with a wider reach. and a more heterogeneous distribution of weights,” the Registrars emphasize.
There are other nationalities that have grown even more over the past year, although in absolute terms they are still below this outstanding group of countries. Of the 17 leading nationalities, in addition to the three mentioned, there are three more, such as Romania, the Netherlands or Sweden.
But the rest are growing, where citizens from Russia (1.20 p.p.), Ukraine (0.89 p.p.), China (0.66 p.p.) or the USA (0.39 p.p.) stand out .). It should also be noted that there was an increase of 1.48 percentage points. up to 28.21% of the total number of transactions by foreigners of other, less well-known nationalities. Among them, there will be more than 24,000 purchases and sales made, among others, by foreigners, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Peruvians, Portuguese or Czechs.
The most popular places: Alicante, Santa Cruz de Tenerife or Malaga.
Demand for foreign housing was positive in most of the country. At the regional level, the 13 Autonomous Communities record an annual increase in the relative weight of foreign home purchases, although the two most prominent of these, the Balearic Islands (31.5%) and the Canary Islands (28.5%) have seen their weight in global transactions decline to 2.88 percentage points on the Mediterranean islands.
Others, such as Comunitat Valenciana (29.3%), Murcia (23.8%) and Catalonia (15.8%), increased significantly: from 4.75 p.p. in the Murcia region up to 2.44 p.p. in the Valencian Community and 2.23 p.p. in the Catalan community. At the same time, Andalusia (15%) lost only 0.08 percentage points.
At the provincial level, this trend continues, with the largest share of home purchases by foreigners occurring in Alicante (44%), approaching half of transactions . They are followed by Santa Cruz de Tenerife (35.7%), Malaga (33.7%), Balearic Islands (31.5%), Girona (29.9%), Murcia (23.8%), Las Palmas (22.1%), Almeria (19.9%), Tarragona (16%) and Castellon (14.5%).
In absolute terms and as calculated by Idealista/news as a percentage, Alicante and Malaga account for more than 37% of the total volume of transactions carried out by foreigners , and if you add Barcelona and Valencia, this exceeds half of sales. In the province of Valencia there were more than 21,000 transactions and in Malaga more than 11,400. In Barcelona there were more than 7,500 and in Valencia and Murcia 5,000 transactions carried out by foreigners. Close behind this year are the Balearic Islands, home to just over 4,400 people, as well as Madrid and the surrounding areas of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Girona.
Nationalities have geographic preferences and are critical when deciding to buy a home in Spain. The yearbook confirms that the British report the largest share of home purchases in Andalusia (15.3%) and the Valencian Community (9.9%), while the Germans choose the Balearic Islands (38.2%) and the Valencian Community (6.3%). ) or Canary Islands (14.4%); and the French choose Catalonia (17.1%) and the Valencian Community (5.6%).
At provincial level, the British bought 12% of the houses purchased by foreigners in Alicante, that is, about 2,500 units. In Malaga it was 15%, about 1,700 units. Meanwhile, 38% of German houses in the Balearic Islands represent another 1,700 transactions. The French were the main buyers in Girona (42%), selling more than 1,700 houses.
In the largest provinces, such as Barcelona or Madrid, foreign purchases are more common and interest rates are lower. In Barcelona, Chinese nationals (10%) accounted for more than 750 transactions, while in Madrid, Romanians (12%) and Chinese (12%) bought the most houses, that is, more than 500 for each nationality.
Used houses and houses with an area of more than 80 m2, a typical profile of foreign purchases.
In overall home sales, foreigners have a larger weight than citizens in smaller homes, but they are not particularly significant since they also use them more as a second home. But if we look at the houses that foreigners buy, the total volume is dominated by houses with an area of more than 100 m2, which account for 34.5% of all transactions.
25.2% comes from medium-sized houses, from 60 to 80 m2, followed by houses from 80 to 100 m2, with 20%. The smallest weights are for houses with an area of less than 60 m2.
Half of the purchases made by Americans were for properties larger than 100 m2 , ahead of the Dutch (44.7%) and the British (41.9%). At the same time, the weight of the smallest houses, less than 40 m2, was among the nationalities of Argentines (10.9%), Italians (9.6%) and French (8.4%).
By housing type, Belgians (24.3%), Dutch (24.2%) and Poles (23.9%) have the highest weight of new homes among purchases, according to the weight of each nationality. The French (90.3%), Argentines (89%) and Irish (88.8%) have the largest volume of purchases of used houses among their own transactions.
9.7% of purchases by foreigners, more than 8,000 houses, exceeded the cost of 500,000 euros . Of these total purchases, 49.6% were community member purchases and 50.4% were non-community purchases. “The latter are those who can benefit from the residence permit measure, increasing their weight by 8.13 percentage points over the last year,” remind the registrars.
Of the purchases made by foreigners in each Autonomous Community, the largest number of purchases over €500,000 were in the Balearic Islands (31.7%), Community of Madrid (19.6%), Andalusia (15%) and Catalonia (12). 0.6%), regions with already generally high prices.
Comentarios