House purchases fell by 2% in April
The total amount of housing purchase and sale transactions in April 2017 was 40,005, representing a year-on-year decline of 2%.
Transactions involving resale property increased by 1.2%, while the sale of new property fell by 10.7%, year-on-year. The sale of single-family properties showed an annual variation of -3.8%, while sales of flats fell by 1.5%.
Average Price
The average price of a square metre of homes bought in April was 1,336€, representing a year-on-year increase of 2.4%. This increase was driven by the increase in the price of single-family homes (+1.1%) and also that of flats (+2.6%).
The average price of second-hand homes was 1,456€/m², an increase of 2.7% year-on-year. The average price of new property stood at 1,938€/m², an increase of 13.8%, year-on-year.
The sales of other real-estate stood at 8,952 transactions, 5.1% lower than the same time last year. Of those sales 36% correspond to the sale of land. The average price per square metre of land stood at 220€, a 1.4% annual increase.
Mortgages
The number of new mortgage loans approved in April was 25,892. This represents a fall of 17.5% when compared to the same month last year, according to the data released by the General Council of Notaries.
Mortgage loans for the purchase of real estate decreased by 8%, year-on-year. This was due to both the fall in loans for home purchases (-7.2% annual variation), and the decrease in mortgages for the purchase of other types of real estate (-17.1%).
The average amount of new loans for property purchase was 131,254€, an increase of 0.3%. In the case of mortgages for purchase of housing the average capital loaned was 126,646€, representing a slight increase of 0.4%.
Loans for construction showed a sharp annual decrease of 25.9% in April, to 422 loans. However, the average amount of these loans was 365,083€, representing an increase of 12.3%. Meanwhile, the average amount of new loans for the construction of a new home fell by 5.1% to 225,864€.
Finally, the percentage of purchases of housing that were financed by a mortgage loan stood at 44.4%. Additionally, in this type of purchase the loan to value ratio was 75.8%.
