April 13, 2023

More foreigners bought a home in Spain 2022

Last year ended with a total of 646,241 registered housing sales in Spain. That was 14.5 percent more than the year before. The number of transactions with foreign buyers increased from 2021 and in Andalusia they account for over 20 percent of the property purchases with a big concentration in Málaga and Almería. This is shown by statistics from the land registry, Colegio de Registradores.

The number of sales of second-hand homes - a total of 531,589 - increased by a whopping 17.6 percent compared to 2021, while sales of new construction only increased by 1.9 percent (114,652 transactions in 2022).

The average price paid for a home last year was 188,036 euros, which is 4.5 percent more than in 2021. Four regions ended up above the national average; the Balearic Islands, Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia.

A 13.8 percent of the housing deals in Spain in 2022 were made by foreigners. It is a good bit above the figure for 2021, 10.8 percent, and thus breaks the trend in which foreign property buyers have decreased over the previous five years.

Roughly 19 percent of all properties sold last year in Andalusia were bought by foreigners. Close to 80 percent of these foreign buyers chose to buy a home in two of the region's provinces, namely Málaga and Almería. In these two provinces, the proportion of foreign buyers amounts to 40 and 26 percent of the total, respectively. 

Among the resident foreigners, the British and Moroccans were the largest buying groups in Andalusia, a total of 20 and 14 percent respectively. Among the non-resident foreigners, the British and the Swedes were the largest nationalities with 18 and 12 percent respectively.

Just over ten percent of foreign home purchases were at or above a purchase price of 500,000 euros. In addition, an increase in buyers from countries outside the EU was observed. This group accounted for 42.3 percent of the total number of foreign buyers, compared to 40.5 percent in 2021.

Sources: Europapress & Diario de Sevilla