Asking prices fell by 0.2% to €1,624 per meter in April, according to data from property portal Fotocasa, compared to a year ago.
Meanwhile the latest house price index from the Government shows that prices were up 2.4% in the first quarter of 2016 year on year and up 0.2% quarter on quarter.
The Fotocasa asking price index has been fairly stable for the last year, with prices never varying more than 1% either up or down. ‘House prices will continue to go in different directions during 2016,’ said Beatriz Toribio, head of research at Fotocasa.
‘Whilst in some areas of the country prices are stabilising or even rising, in others they continue to fall hard. This is a consequence of the crisis the sector has lived through, which has left a market of two or more speeds that is ever more obvious,’ Toribio added.
Since the peak of the market in 2007 average house prices have fallen by 45% but there is some regional variation. Peak to present prices are down by 50.5% in Murcia, 47.5% in the Valencian Region, 47% in Catalonia, 43.9% in Madrid, and 42.6% in Andalusia.
The Government figures, however, show that house prices are down 29% since the peak which it outs at the first quarter of 2008 and it adds that price bottomed out in the third quarter of 2014.
Prices have increased the most in the Balearics with growth of 9.6%, followed by Catalonia up 4.9%, Madrid up 4.2%, Extremadura up 3.7%, Galicia up 2.6%, the Valencian region up 2.4% and the Canaries also up by 2.4%.
The latest mortgage figures show that lending volumes are also up which means more people can buy a home. The data from the National Statistics Institute on Friday reveals that the number of new mortgages listed in the property registers in Spain stood at 22,983 in March, up 4.5% over the same month in 2015.
In more good news for the Spanish property market the latest report from the General Council of Notaries show that foreign demand rose by 12.9% in 2015. More than half, 52%, were people buying a holiday home while 48% were foreigners living in Spain.
The British were the biggest group of foreign buyers with 21% of the market, followed by the French at 9%, Germans at 7.5%, Belgians at 6% and Italians at 5.5%, the data also shows.
The Balearics is the most popular part of Spain with overseas buyers with foreign purchases amounting to 44% of the market, with the Canaries at 39%, Valencia at 37% and Murcia and Andalusia both at 25%.
Foreign demand growth was strongest in regions with small markets, where even a modest increase in foreign demand translates into a big increase in percentage terms. Growth was biggest in La Rioja with a rise of 59%, Castille-La Mancha up 57% and Navarre up 41%. Growth was smaller in Valencia at 7% and Catalonia at 5%.
Mark Stucklin, of Spanish Property Insight, pointed out that non-resident demand for second homes in Spain is now 60% higher than it was in June 2007, at the peak of the real estate boom, having fallen by 50% in June 2009.
‘That’s quite a recovery. Resident demand, on the other hand, has only just recovered to where it was back in 2007, having collapsed 60% between 2007 and 2008,’ he pointed out.
He also explained that the price paid per square meter is still around 20% below the level in 2007. ‘Foreign non-residents might be buying 60% more holiday homes than they did in the boom, but they are still paying 20% less,’ he added.
