Foreigners accounted for 17.5% of all sales
Home purchases in Spain by foreign buyers continued to rise in the first half of 2016. From January to June almost 40,000 foreigners bought a home in Spain, 17.5% of the total property sales for that period. This is according to data released by property portal Idealista.
The first quarter of 2016 saw foreigners by 17,868 properties. This increased in the second quarter with 21,798 foreign buyers. This also continued the positive trend becoming the twentieth consecutive quarter to record a positive annual increase.
Foreign Purchases by Community
The communities to see the largest proportion of sales to foreign buyers were Valencia (11,557), Andalusia (7,960) and Catalonia (5,732).
When looking at the number of foreign buyers as a percentage of the total, we see the islands dominate. On the Canary Islands 40.8% of home purchases were by foreign buyers. On the Balearic Islands foreigners accounted for 37.1% of property sales, while in Valencia 34.1% of property sales were to foreign buyers.
The Mediterranean Coast appears to remain as the preferred location for foreign buyers. Valencia and Andalusia took the largest proportion of sales.
If we add to those regions the figures from Murcia (1,873) and the Balearic Islands (2,804) it shows that three out of four homes purchased by foreigners (75.4%) are on the Mediterranean Coast.
Apart from the islands, other regions with above-average sales to foreign buyers include Murcia (25.6%) and Andalusia (18.5%). In contrast, in Extremadura only 2.1% of property sales were to foreigners. In Galicia the figure is 2.2%.
Property purchases by foreigners were scarce in Cantabria (97), and La Rioja (105).
With the UK Brexit taking place within the third quarter it will be interesting to see those figures and if the decision to leave the EU has negatively affected the Spanish property market, as many suggested it would.
