ARCHIVED - Spanish property sales hit 20-month high

The market appears to have returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity except in the islands

Evidence continues to gather of the return of the Spanish property market to pre-pandemic levels, and the latest figures published by the national government on Friday report the highest sales total since July 2019.

The 47,332 transactions during March 2021 represented a 32.4 per cent year-on-year increase, the comparison being with the month in which the first coronavirus lockdown came into force. Significant rises were recorded in all 17 regions other than the Canaries (+2.7 per cent) and the Balearics, where the figures actually dropped by 3 per cent: no doubt this is due to the continuing difficulties in travelling to the islands, where many purchasers acquire holiday homes rather than first residences.

The sharpest increases can be seen in the inland regions of Madrid (59.2 per cent), Cantabria (56.9 per cent) and La Rioja (55.6 per cent), while the Mediterranean coastal regions of Catalunya, the Comunidad Valenciana, Murcia and Andalucía all saw rises of between 14 and 34 per cent.

The running 12-month total of homes bought and sold in Spain is still 15.7 per cent lower than a year ago at a little over 420,000, but the signs are that by the end of 2021 that figure could well be approaching the half a million which was reached early lasty year, just before coronavirus had such a dramatic effect on real estate and other sectors of the national economy.