Registrars: foreigners are actively buying houses in Spain, despite the fall in sales.

Official information confirms a decline in real estate sales through 2023. This time, real estate registrars closed last year with a drop of 9.8% compared to 2022. This means 583,042 registered transactions in Spain, the second best value in registration statistics since 2007, with the second best performance after the outstanding behavior in 2022.

Transactions involving used residential real estate accounted for 81.4% of total transactions, with 474,658 transactions, representing a year-over-year decline of 10.7%. New residential real estate transactions totaled 108,384 transactions with a 5.5% decline. After the outstanding results achieved in 2021 and especially in 2022, last year 2023 means a slowdown, but the level of the home buying and selling market remains roughly at the level achieved before the sanitization crisis.

During the following quarters

is likely to continue the trend of a slowdown in the rate of home purchase transactions, but at a level that could be characterized as normal, exceeding 10 transactions per thousand people and year, with a result in 2023 of 12.03," the registrars note. "The main factor with an adverse impact, as was the rise in interest rates, has been completed its ascent, and especially important for the future behavior of transactions becomes the development of economic activity and its impact on employment," the registrars specify.

The purchase of real estate and interest in buying a house in Spain is almost invisible among the foreign population, whether resident or not. In fact, transactions carried out by foreigners went very similar to 2022, with an annual drop of only 1.7%, and amounted to about 87,400 transactions, according to data combined by quarter calculated by idealista/news registrars.

These calculations, which precede the publication of the "Yearbook of Real Estate Registration Statistics", which the registrars will publish in March, confirm the outstanding situation of foreign buyers in the Spanish real estate market. The absolute number of transactions is the second best in history, exceeded only by 2022 (88,858). But the share of these transactions of foreigners in the total volume of transactions has reached a high of 15% in 2023, exceeding this time 2022.

Over the past two years.

these figures were significantly higher in both total number and percentage of transactions compared to the pre-pandemic period, with approximately 20,000 more transactions and almost three points higher. The communité Valencia is confirmed as the preferred region for foreigners.

According to calculations by administrative district, the Communitat Valencia in 2023 was the leader in home sales by foreigners with approximately 28,000 house purchases.

In these regions, the share of purchases by foreigners was also significant, as in Andalusia or Catalonia, both above 15%, but outpaced byMurcia, where almost one in four transactions is carried out by a foreigner. In Madrid, given the high total volume of transactions, which amounted to more than 70,000 for the whole of 2023, their share is not so high, a little over 6%.

However, it is in the Balearic Islands that foreigners have the greatest importance in the domestic market, exceeding in this case the Communitat Valencia. In the Balearic Islands, more than 30% of all home purchase transactions are carried out by foreigners, whether resident or not. The Canary Islands are among the three regions where foreigners have the largest share of these transactions.

According to calculations based on quarterly information from registrars, the proportion of home purchases by foreigners increased in all administrative districts, despite the decline in the total number of transactions, demonstrating their interest in owning a home in Spain.

The British, Germans, and French continue to be the main foreign buyers of real estate in Spain. The British accounted for one in ten transactions among foreigners, with over 8,000 purchases in 2023. They are followed by the Germans with more than 6,000 transactions on Spanish soil, which represents over 7% of the total foreign transactions. At the same time, the French are nearing these 6,000 transactions, which is just under 7% of the total.

Following them are Moroccans, Belgians, Italians, Romanians, and Dutch, acquiring between 4,000 and 5,000 homes respectively, accounting for 4.5% to 5.5% of the total number of transactions among foreign citizens.

The presence of Poles, Russians, Chinese, and Ukrainians remains stable, along with a significant presence of Americans, who this year could break their own record with more than 1,300 operations in Spain.