Leading bank expects further 2.5% rise in Spanish property prices this year

BBVA Bank has, in its latest property market analysis, forecast that Spanish property prices will rise by an average of 2.5% this year as the country continues to improve its economy and reduce its stock of unsold homes.

In 2016 conditions on both fronts improved dramatically, and with the country’s GDP poised to rise a further 3% this year, the feeling is that more and more Spaniards – as well as foreign buyers – will be in a position to purchase a home in 2017…

Coupled with mortgage interest rates remaining low, and the amount of properties unsold reducing, the number of transactions will also increase this year, BBVA Bank believes: perhaps not as sharply as the 13.5% additional sales recorded in 2016 (although some experts put that figure higher, at 19%), but not far off.

In all, the number of homes sold in Spain in 2017 is expected to top the half a million figure, with a growing proportion of those sales financed via Spanish mortgages. Low interest rates cannot last though, BBVA warns, and expects 2018 to mark a slight slowdown in the number of mortgages being taken out as interest rates rise.