The Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) has released its data for sales made in December 2014 and its roundup of data for the year of 2014. Results are extremely positive with sales up by 15.7% year-on-year for December and a 2.2% increase being recorded for 2014 as a whole.
The annual increase ends years of extreme decreases in the number of sales of Spanish property with sales dropping by 18.1% in 2011, 11.5% in 2012 and 1.9% in 2013. A total of 319,389 homes were sold in Spain during 2014 which is down 59% from the peak in 2007 when 775,300 homes were sold.
Data shows a clear split between the first and second halves of the year with sales rebounding strongly in the last six months of 2014 and double digit year-on-year percentage increases in sales have been recorded from September onwards (September +13.7%, October +16%, November +14% and December +15.7%).
Resales were the driving force behind the increase in sales and made up 63% of total sales with 199,943 transactions up 18.4% on 2013. New-build performed badly during 2014 and accounted for the remaining 37% of sales with 119,446 transactions, a figure that was down by 16.9% on the previous year.
The Spanish regions which recorded the strongest sales increases in 2014 according to INE data were the Balearic Islands with an 18.5% increase, Navarra: +13.9% and the Canary Islands: +12%. The largest declines in sales were registered in La Rioja: -25.1%, Castilla-la-Mancha: -12.6% and Murcia: -6.3%.
The annual change for other important regions was as follows – Madrid: +6.9%, Catalonia: +3.8%, the Valencia region: +2.5% and Andalucia: +0.3%. The highest number of transactions per 100,000 inhabitants was in the Valencia region with 1,182, it was followed by the Balearic Islands: 1,043 and the Canary Islands: 1,015.
