Spain’s property market continues recovery

Figures released earlier this week reveal that property prices across Spain are have risen steadily over the past 12 months.

The latest data from Spain’s Central’s Statistics Unit show that the average property price in Spain was 4 per cent higher at the end of the second quarter of 2015 than it was a year earlier.

This is the latest sign that Spanish property market recovery is going through a long awaited recovery – a recovery which dates back to the second quarter of 2014, when the first price increase for six years was reported. This upward trend has now been maintained for five consecutive quarters.

A major difference in the latest figures, though, comes with the news that property prices were higher in all 17 of Spain’s regions in the second quarter of this year than they were last year. The largest price increases were recorded in the Basque Country (7.3 per cent), Madrid (6.4 per cent), Catalunya (5.5 per cent) and Cantabria (5.1 per cent).

Extremadura, Navarra, Asturias and Galicia saw the weakest price growth, with house values in all four of these regions increasing by less than 1 per cent in this 12-month period.

When looking at trends between the end of first and second quarter of 2015, Catalunya and Cantabria lead the way in terms of price growth (both markets recorded increases in excess of 5 per cent), while growth remained weak in Extremadura (less than 1 per cent).

However, the fact that prices are increasing in all these regions, and nationally at a faster pace than at any time since 2007, is cause for great optimism in the country. In addition to the property market recovery, Spain’s economy is also expanding at the fastest pace in eight years and twice the average for the euro area.