ARCHIVED - September property sales in Murcia rose by 3 per cent and almost reached an 8 1/2 year high

The increase in Murcia was one of only two in the 17 regions of Spain

This Tuesday saw the publication by the government’s central statistics unit of the residential property sales data for September 2019, showing that the number of transactions was significantly lower than last year at for the second consecutive month, but in the Region of Murcia the opposite was the case as the total rose to within 15 of the highest figure since February 2011.

Following a universal slump in all parts of Spain in the August figures it appears that a ceiling may have been reached in the level of activity in the market nationwide, but in Murcia the September data show a moderate increase of 3.1 per cent to 1,548 sales. As a result after nine months of 2019 the cumulative total of property sales in the Costa Cálida has reached just 1.4 per cent more than at the same stage in 2018 (at 12,752).

At the same time the running 12-monthly total of transactions registered in the Costa Cálida stands at 16,617 (6.4 per cent higher than a year ago), meaning that there has been an increase of as much as 78 per cent since the market bottomed out in August 2014.

In September Murcia was one of only 2 regions to register an increase in housing sales (along with Aragón), with the sharpest decreases of over 20 per cent being in the Canaries and the northern regions of Asturias, La Rioja, Navarra and Castilla y León. In consequence the running 12-monthly total in the whole of Spain is now at just over 504,000 (0.9 per cent lower than a year ago).

As usual the busiest regional market in terms of sales per 100,000 inhabitants of property-buying age during the month was the Comunidad Valenciana, with a figure of 151, due in large part to the frequency with which properties in the Costa Blanca change hands among the non-Spanish population, while the corresponding figure for Murcia was 135, the second highest in the country.

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 in Murcia was only 15.6 per cent, with 240 transactions reported.

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