Notary data shows 11% property sales increase in January

Official notary data from Spain has revealed that property sales in the month of January were 11% higher in 2018 than they were in the same month in 2017.

As a figure, this represented 38,953 Spanish properties changing hands for the month. The data is based on final sales handled by the notaries of Spain, and as such is considered among the most accurate sources for the industry…

Although a traditionally slower month for sales, January’s annual increase was the ninth month in a row that sales volumes had increased – a sequence that would have been much longer had the impact of Easter not affected sales figures in April last year.

Of the homes sold in January, the volume purchased with a mortgage also increased, by 14%, reaching 18,047 homes purchased this way. The average loan capital, however, was down some 4.2% on 2017, falling to €130,182.

Hence, the data shows that 46.3% of properties bought in Spain were purchased with a mortgage, which is actually the highest figure for eight months and suggests that more young Spaniards are getting into the property market with the assistance of more generous lending institutions.

For those homes bought in January with a mortgage, the average loan capital was 75.9% of the price paid for the property.