Apartment purchases fell by 13%, and mortgages by 24%

The Home sales accentuated their decline in February with a 13.1% drop in the year-on-year rate, while mortgage approvals fell by 24.4% in the context of rising interest rates and the consequent increase in financing costs, according to notary public data. In February, only apartment prices concluded positively, although the growth amounted to only 0.3 percent to 1,582 euros per square meter, according to data available to the Main Council of Notaries.

Specifically, in February 48,445 sales of apartments were recorded.

By housing type, apartment turnover decreased by 12.4% compared to February 2022, reaching 37,317 units, while single-family units fell by 15.4% to 11,128 units. The apartment prices recorded an increase of 0.9% compared to the same month of the previous year, to 1,762 euros per square meter, while the price of family houses averaged 1,247 euros per square meter, recording a drop of 2.4 percent.

Strong setbacks in sales

Observed by autonomous community, the biggest drop in sales was recorded in Navarre (-29%); Balearic Islands (-22.2%); Canary Islands (-17.7%); Aragon (-17.4%); Andalusia (17.3%); Catalonia (-16.2%); Madrid (-15.1%); Extremadura (-14.7%) and Murcia (-14.4%).

The declines in Galicia were somewhat more moderate (-11.4%); Basque Country (-11.2%); La Rioja (-10.7%); Castile-La Mancha (-9.4%); Community of Valencia (-5.1%); Castilla y León (-3.8%) and Cantabria (-2.7%). The purchase and sale of apartments grew exclusively in Asturias (1.5%).

Price, positive

At the price level, growth was recorded in ten autonomies. In order of magnitude, a double-digit increase was recorded in La Rioja (29.1%); Castilla-La Mancha (13.7%); Cantabria (12.2%); Canary Islands (11.8%) and Madrid (11.3%).

instead of that, house prices fall in Aragon (-9.2%); Asturias (-6.7%); Galicia (-5.9%); Navarra (-3.1%); Andalusia (-2%); Murcia (-1.9%) and the Balearic Islands (-1.4%).

Mortgage crash

In February, mortgage loans for house purchase decreased by 24.4% on an annual basis, up to 20,591 operations. The average amount of these loans fell by 7.1% on an annual basis, reaching an average of 144,004 euros.

Percentage of purchase of apartments financed with a housing loan amounted to 42.5 percent. In addition, with this type of purchase with financing, the loan amount represented an average of 70.8% of the price.

Mortgage loans for the purchase of a house did not record growth in any autonomous region, and the biggest cuts occurred in the Balearic Islands (23.8%); Castile-La Mancha (-22.7%); Castilla y León (-21.6%); Community of Valencia (-18.9%); Canary Islands (-16%); Basque Country (-15.9%) and Cantabria (-12.4%).