News: Home Sales Increased By 15.5% In February

A total of 29,714 home sales transactions were registered in Spain in February, which is one of the highest figures in recent months, and represents an increase of 15.5% over the same month of 2014, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute data released last week, which corresponds to sales recorded in the property registers from deeds carried out in months prior to the period of reference.

This rise is the sixth consecutive year-on-year increase, and is due to the sales of second hand homes rising by 50.4%, to a total of 21,613 transactions. Sales of new homes, in contrast, fell by 28.6% compared with February 2014, to 8,101 transactions.

El Economista reported that, with transactions on new housing decreasing by 33.3% and those on second hand homes increasing by 50.6%, home sales accumulated an increase of 12.3% in the first two months of the year.

Month-on-month (February over January), home sales fell by 11.1%, compared to the month-on-month decline of 15.7% registered a year earlier.

Of the home sales conducted during the second month of the year, 89% were for private housing, which increased by 13.6% year-on-year, to a total of 26,451 transactions, while 3,263 transactions related to social housing, with a rise of 33.5% over February of 2014.

In February, the largest numbers of home sales per 100,000 inhabitants were recorded in Valencia (105) and Madrid (96). In absolute terms, Andalucia continued to lead the home sales in the second month of the year, with 6,149 transactions, followed by Madrid (4,834), Catalonia (4,558) and Valencia (4,132).

In relative terms, the regions where home sales increased most year-on-year were Aragon (+49.2%), Madrid (+28.4%) and Catalonia (+23.2%). The only three regions to record declines, year-on-year, were Navarra (-22.7%), the Canary Islands (-5.5%) and Murcia (-1.2%).