MADRID – When you put your house up for sale, you usually want it to be sold quickly. However, whether that succeeds is another matter. You can have willing buyers, but external factors also influence. Think of rising interest rates, macroeconomic developments, etc.
Real estate platform Idealista mapped out how long it will take to sell a house in Spain in 2023. According to this study, 20% of homes up for sale via this platform in December were sold after a week. In a period between a week and a month, 15% were sold. It took between one and two months for a buyer to sign a purchase contract for 21% of those homes. Between three months and a year for sale applied to 29% of those homes. And for 14%, it took more than a year.
Most express sales in Granada
Express sales – in less than a week – are more common in larger cities. In Granada, the percentage of homes sold within a week was 34%. This city at the foot of the Sierra Nevada was followed by Pontevedra (31%), Salamanca (30%), Tarragona (29%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (28%), Lleida (27%), Albacete (27%) and Barcelona (28%). The ranking was closed with the cities of Almeria (25%), Madrid (25%), Girona (24%), San Sebastian (24%), Guadalajara and Malaga (23% in both cases).
At the other end of the spectrum are the zones where you have to be patient before you can replace the “for sale” sign with one that says “sold”. This applied to the city of Teruel. Here only 3% of sales are classified as ‘express’, followed by Ceuta with 4%. The other Spanish cities with express sales rates below 10% are Zamora and Lugo (both 6%), and Ciudad Real (9%).
Best provinces to expect a fast house sale
The Spanish provinces where you have the best chance of selling your home quickly are Granada, Salamanca and Almeria. As for Granada, it is not only the city but also the province of the same name with the highest percentage of express sales. In December 2022, no less than 30% of the houses in the area listed on Idealista were sold within seven days.
The next provinces on the list are Salamanca (29%), Almeria (29%), Albacete (27%), Lleida (26%), Jaen (24%) and Madrid (24%). The list continues with Barcelona and Toledo (23% in both cases), Murcia (21%), Seville (21%), Las Palmas, Tarragona, Navarra, Malaga, Castellon, Cadiz, Cuenca and Alava (8% in these 8 provinces).
