Purchases and sales of homes in Spain fell by 9.7% in 2023 to 586,913 units. This is 63,352 fewer than in 2022. A change after the increases of 14.8% in 2022 and 34.8% in 2021. The Spanish statistical office INE published this data on Thursday.
In 2023, 2,110,241 properties registered in the Land Registry were transferred, 6.1% less than in 2022. The INE data show that the number of mortgage-free homes transferred through purchase and sale decreased by 9.5%. The number of purchases and sales of protected homes fell by 12.1%. The number of transactions for new homes also fell by 4.8% and that of existing homes by 10.8%. Mortgages on residential properties fell by 17.8%. The only region where property purchases and sales increased in 2023 was Asturias, while the Balearic Islands suffered the biggest decline.
Data on purchases and sales for December
The INE provides a more detailed breakdown of the data for December. The number of registered purchase and sale transactions was 73,604, a decrease of 12.3%.
In December, 85.6% of registered sales were urban real estate and 14.4% were rural real estate. The number of sales of rural properties fell by 4.8% year-on-year in December and that of urban properties by 13.5%. Of the homes transferred by purchase and sale in December, 92.8% were mortgage-free and 7.2% were protected.
Transactions on an annual basis
On a year-on-year basis, the number of mortgage-free homes transferred by purchase and sale fell by 15.1%. The number of sheltered homes by 22%; In addition, 18.7% of the homes sold in December were new and 81.3% were existing homes.
The number of transactions for new homes decreased by 11.9% compared to December 2022. For existing homes, the figure fell by 16.4%.
Purchases and sales by region
Castilla y León (29.9%), Castilla-La Mancha (7.5%) and Navarra (5.7%) experienced the largest changes in the total number of homes transferred in December. In contrast, the Basque Country, Valencia region and Murcia had the lowest annual rates of 25.1%, 23.3% and 18.7%, respectively. The only autonomous communities where the number of transfers increased were Asturias (12.7%), Aragón (3.7%) and Castilla-La Mancha (3.4%). The Balearic Islands, Madrid and the Basque Country experienced the largest decreases, of 23.8%, 21.7% and 20.3% respectively.
