Foreigners buy 15% of the housing sold in Spain.

Recently, there has been a significant increase in interest from foreign citizens in purchasing real estate in Spain. Current data shows that the share of home purchases made by foreigners reaches15%from the total number of transactions, according to the data2023published by the College of Registrars of Spain. The President of the government,Pedro Sánchezannounced his intention to abolish the so-called "golden visas," which allow for residency permits when purchasing real estate worth no less than500,000 euros.

In the last ten years, there have been issued14.576such visas that confirm the data provided by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda. Foreigners have especially started to actively purchase real estate in major Spanish cities, such asBarcelona,Madrid,Málaga,Alicante,Balearic IslandsandValenciaThese regions concentrated around90%issued visas for investors. In Barcelona and Marbella, the purchase of housing under these visas amounted to5.3%and7.1%from the total volume of transactions accordingly.

Most active buyers

The most active home buyers in Spain are citizens.ChinaandRussia, which have received more since the beginning of the century2.700and1.100golden visas, respectively. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of these visas were issued for the purchase of real estate.

Trends and statistics

The demand for foreignreal estate in Spain continues to grow. In recent years, there has been a steady trend confirming the increase in interest. Thus, inin 2022the growth amounted to13.75%, in2021-10.8%, and in2020-11.3%The peak demand occurred in the second quarter.2020When, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, housing prices began to recover and the number of sales started to rise again.

Analyzing the statistics of recent years, one can notice that citizensUnited Kingdom,France,Germany,BelgiumandSwedenare the most active buyers. Thus, more14%All transactions were made by the British over the last ten years, while the French came in second place with their results.8.1%...followed by the Germans with...7.8%Belgian people with6%and the Swedes with5.2%.

Depending on the current data2023The picture is changing a bit: the British have formed9.5%of the total number of purchases, Germans -7.3%the French -6.6%Moroccans -5.4%and the Belgians -5.3%The National Statistics Institute of Spain provides similar data on real estate transactions, although their reports do not include a breakdown by nationality.

Thus, the Spanish housing market is becoming increasingly attractive to foreign buyers, and the change in legislation regarding the cancellation of golden visas may have a significant impact on current trends in this area. Following the mentioned bill, the relevance of issues related to investments in Spanish real estate will only grow, considering historical data and the ongoing interest of foreign citizens. The interest at the level of international investors indicates that Spain continues to be one of the most popular countries for real estate investments on the international stage.