In April property sales soared 66% and exceeded 2019 levels

The de-escalation and the gradual recovery of economic activity continue to propitiate a carry-over effect in the real estate market that comes from the toughest months of the pandemic. According to the data released this Tuesday by the Real Estate Registry Statistics of the College of Registrars of Spain, the sale of real estate, including homes and other types, shot up 91% in April 2021, going from almost 45,000 operations recorded in the fourth month of last year to the 85,635 registered this year.

However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the comparisons with April 2020, a month undoubtedly marked by the Great Confinement and the cessation of non-essential activity, are inaccurate and do not allow a linear analysis to be established. For this reason, and to be able to confront the numbers with those of a base year, the registrars recall that the data is also notably higher than those recorded in April 2019, a year before the outbreak of Covid-19. In this case, the yearly increase is 9.3%.

Analyzing only house purchases, operations have gone from the 24,260 registered in 2020 to 40,252 operations this year, which represents an increase of almost 66%. Compared to 2019, the rise is lower for 3%.

By region, the largest increases in total sales compared to April 2020 were recorded in the autonomous city of Melilla (an increase of 366.7%) and in communities that had less weight in the real estate market, such as Castilla -La Mancha (179.3%), Extremadura (168.8%), Murcia (134.6%), Navarra (120.7%), Castilla y León (118.6%) and Aragón (112.9% ).

In Andalusia, the increase in total sales is 93%, in the Canary Islands, 81%, in the Balearic Islands, 72%, and in Madrid, only 1%.

The report of the registrars indicates in turn that the number of total mortgages increased by 31.9% in April compared to the same month of 2020, after registering 31,369 operations. When compared to April 2019, the increase has been 9.7%.

Mortgages for housing grew by 31.5% compared to April 2020, after registering 30,324 operations, and by 8.8% when compared to the same month in 2019, when the total figure was around 27,800 homes.

By autonomous community, the largest increases in total mortgages compared to April last year were registered in Melilla (147.8%), Castilla-La Mancha (104.5%) and Extremadura (83.9%).

Housing prices

The price of free housing, according to data released this Tuesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), rose 0.9% in the first quarter of the year rate, six tenths less than in the previous quarter and rate was the lowest since the third quarter of 2014, according to the Housing Price Index (HPI) updated by Statistics. With the rebound in the first quarter, the price of free housing has already accumulated 28 quarters of yearly growth, although with a clear trend towards moderation.

By type of property, the price of second-hand homes increased 0.7% compared with last year, in the first quarter, three tenths more than in the previous quarter. In the case of new homes, their value increased by 2.3% in the same period, almost six points less than in the previous quarter and its lowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2014.

At a quarterly rate (first quarter of 2021 over the fourth quarter of 2020), the price of housing rebounded 0.5% between January and March, compared to the decrease of 0.8% registered in the previous quarter and the advance of 1 , 1% from the first quarter of 2020.

By type of home, new home prices decreased 0.6% between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first of this year, while second-hand home prices increased 0.7%, compared to the decline quarterly of the 1.1% registered in the last three months of 2020.