Date Published: 26/12/2022
ARCHIVED - What will the Spanish property market look like in 2023?
ARCHIVED ARTICLE -
There has been something of a boom in the number of overseas buyers purchasing property in Spain in 2022, but will this trend for the Spanish real estate market continue into 2023?
After three years of the Covid-19 pandemic slowing down the property market in
Spain significantly, 2022 has been the year that demand has bounced back and property sales have shot up.
This is especially true when it comes to overseas buyers, such as British, Irish and US citizens looking to move to Spain, and foreign investment has been one of the largest drivers to help recover the Spanish real estate market in 2022. And it hasn’t just bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, but actually beaten them!
Sales of homes in Spain to non-Spaniards made up 15.92% of the total property transactions in the third quarter of 2022, according to the
Association of Property Registrars in its latest report. That’s the highest level in the last 10 years.
While demand to buy a home in Spain has risen 76% over the last year, the demand from Spanish people rose just 13%, showing that it is the expats and those overseas buyers looking for holiday homes on the Spanish coast who are driving the recovery of the market.
Brits are the nationality who have bought the most homes in Spain during the third quarter of the year, 9.3% of the total, with the Germans (8.04%), French (6.21%) and Romanians (4.58%) trailing behind.
At the same time, there was strong growth from emerging markets such as the USA (+76%), although the largest of all came from the Netherlands (+121%).
The question is, will this fantastic growth continue in 2023, and is now a good time to buy property in Spain?
Is 2023 a good year to buy house in Spain?
According to Nigel Salmon, Managing Director at
Girasol Homes, a professional property finder specialising in the Spanish and Portuguese real estate markets, this renewed vigour of foreign buyers purchasing homes in Spain after the pandemic is likely to ease off somewhat.
“My thoughts are that the market’s going to bottom out in 2023, a little bit like the UK market,” says Nigel. “There’s a lot of global events – Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis, inflation – and generally the pressures are going to clip people’s wings.”
“The market’s probably going to cool down from nuts to normal,” points out the property expert. “Basically, it will still be good but effectively it won’t be quite as hot.”
As he puts it, there will be a “correction rather than a crash” in the Spanish real estate market, and this means there will still be great deals to be had when buying a home in
Alicante,
Murcia or
Huelva, popularly known as the ‘Spanish Algarve’.
Of course, adds Nigel, if people are looking to be residents in Spain or take a medium long-term view of their move, the property they acquire is more than just a property, and valuation or purchase price is not the only or the main point to consider. “It is a vehicle for making memories in,” he says.
“We have some amazing properties in
Granada which offer a completely Spanish lifestyle and some business opportunities there too,” adds Nigel, indicating that for savvy buyers, the Spanish property market still holds plenty of gems and a lot of promise in 2023.
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