Housing and Banking data in Spain

General statistical reports Spain

Last week and this week saw a number of reports published in Spain in relation to house sales, transfer of property rights and the Spanish Banks.

Overall the transfer of property from one individual to another saw a dip in March both year on year and month on month. When the statistics are broken down the sale of actual homes whilst down on Februarys figures never the less are holding up year on year and annually accumulated.

Drops in urban commercial sales and lower levels of swaps and Inheritance affected the overall figures as did a lower level of transfers falling into other titles which includes Bank repossessions of security half for a mortgage in Spain.

Number of house sales

A total of 31,925 homes were sold in March of such only 6,200 were new builds with the rest being sales of second hand homes. This split is a far cry from the boom years when new build sales outstripped resales.

Sales of homes to foreign buyers both those who are living in Spain and those specifically buying a second or holiday home saw an increase through 2015 of 12.9% according to the council of Notaries.

Foreign buyers are made up of all nationalities but the largest group by quite some way is the British. Foreign buyers who lived in Spain during 2015 bought at a lower price per meter square than in 2014 but those who did not live in Spain paid 2.9% more per meter square than in 2014. This may be due to a number of factors, where they buy, type of property they buy and how they sourced the purchase.

Easing of lending to the non resident market during 2015 and an increase in the number of mortgage product types available assisted the market.

Spanish Banks

Spanish Banks also came under pressure last week as the first round of quarterly results for the major lenders showed a drop in profitability due to margin pressures. With interest rates at an all time low it is difficult to the Banks to remain competitive and still make money.

Further consolidation is expected during 2016 with more mergers possibly on the cards and a further streamlining of the branch networks.

Read the full article:- A mixed bag of Spanish data