Russian citizens are accelerating the sale of real estate in Spain to provide liquidity after the bank blockade.

After the outbreak of war, we are seeing more and more Russian owners putting their villas up for sale in order to have access to cash as their financial situation is complicated by the blocking of bank accounts. This was stated by Manuel Alarcón, CEO of Libehomes and member of Aepsi (Spanish association of personal shoppers in the real estate sector). This situation was predicted by this newspaper the month the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began. At that time, Gerard Marcet, co-founder of Laborde Marcet, pointed out that "the conflict leads to the acceleration of planned operations due to the fear of the possible closure of Russian bank accounts". Thus, it is clear that some of the sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia,''are having an impact on the real estate market. "Since the Crimean crisis in 2014, the Russian client has stopped buying up real estate en masse. He is still active, but only for luxury properties," clarified Alarcon.

In the first quarter of 2022, according to statistics from the College of Registrars, real estate purchase transactions concluded by Russian citizens in Spain amounted to 2.06% of the total. This is significantly less than the 12.03% for the British, 9.47% for the Germans, 7.05% for the French, 5.80% for the Moroccans, 5.76% for the Swedes, 5.67% for the Belgians and 5.04% for the Dutch. In the case of Ukraine, this percentage amounted to 1.13%. Thus, neither Russians nor Ukrainians represent a significant share of transactions in the real estate market in Spain. However, they tend to be concentrated in tourist areas or large''cities such as the Balearic Islands, Costa Brava, Costa del Sol, Madrid and Barcelona. They are interested in luxury real estate with high prices.

If you look back, this percentage has been decreasing gradually over the last five years. In the case of Russian citizens, for example, it decreased from 3.07% in the first quarter of 2018 to 3.32% in the same period of 2019. In 2020, it was 2.75% to fall to 2.26% in 2021 and already mentioned 2.06% in 2022. The trend is similar in the case of Ukrainians. It changes from 1.67% in the first quarter of 2018 to 1.71% in the same period of 2019.

According to statistics from the General Council of Notaries, Russian citizens have carried out a total of 1,306 transactions in Spain on''real estate market in the second half of 2021. This is 28.4% more than the 1,112 transactions in the first half of the year. Thus, it is 19.3% more than in the same periods of 2020. The average price per square meter of housing purchased by Russian citizens in the second half of the year was 2091 euros. If, for example, it was a dwelling of 100 square meters, they would have paid almost 210,000 euros. Multiplying this number by the aforementioned 1306 transactions, the total amount would be about 273 million euros. Although Russian buyers prefer the luxury market with more square meters. In other words, their interest is more concentrated on premises with costs of around one million euros.

In the case of Ukrainians, the number of transactions amounted to 714 and 771 in the first and second half of 2021''respectively. These are increases of 23.3% and 30.9% compared to the same periods of the previous year. The average price per square meter was 1,441 euros in the second half of 2021. For this example with a house of 100 square meters, they would have paid more than 144,000 euros. Multiplying this number by 771 transactions, the total would have amounted to about 111 million euros. With this data, the market never reached the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. Rather, this is data that was current around 2016. And Russians spend more than Ukrainians: about twice as much.