ARCHIVED - Spanish property sales figures plummeted by 21 per cent in August

Figures fell sharply in all 17 of the regions of Spain

This Thursday saw the publication by the government’s central statistics unit of the residential property sales data for the month of August 2019, showing that the number of transactions was a massive 21.1 per cent lower than in the same month last year at 35,371.

In some ways this comes as something of a shock after months during which it appeared that there was a trend towards stability as the recovery in the market loses momentum. In the case of figures produced by Spain’s notaries it is normal for August to show lower figures than other months, but the property registers which supply data to the government’s statistics unit tend to show significant seasonal decreases only in December and at Easter.

Thus, the last three “blips” of this kind, when the sales figure dropped below 37,000, were in December 2017 and 2018 and April 2017, were followed on each by the next month showing exceptionally high levels of activity: whether this will be the case in the September 2019 data only time will tell.

Usually the overall figures for Spain conceal a good deal of disparity among the results reported in Spain’s 17 regions, but in August the downward trend was universal. Year-on-year decreases ranged from 8.6 per cent in Galicia and 13.7 per cent in Castilla y León to over 40 per cent in Extremadura and the Canaries.

As is almost always the case, the region with most sales per 100,000 inhabitants of property-buying age during July was the Comunidad Valenciana, with a figure of 136, while the figure for the Region of Murcia and the Costa Cálida was 103.

As a result of the August decrease the overall total of sales registered in the first 8 months of 2019 is now 2.2 per cent lower than at the same point last year at just under 347,000, while the running 12-monthly total is 0.8 per cent higher than a year ago at a little over 509,000. Taking an even longer view, though, the extent to which the real estate sector in Spain has recovered is such that the level of sales activity is 74 per cent higher than when the market bottomed out in February 2014.

It is also worth noting, in the context of reports of increased demand for new housing in Spain and an upturn in residential construction activity, that the proportion of sales accounted for by new properties during August was up to 18.2 per cent, with 6,426 transactions reported.

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