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ARCHIVED - Coronavirus changes house-buying habits in Spain as buyers look for detached homes
Data show a rise in house sales after confinement but fewer non-Spanish buyers due to international travel restrictions
Figures published this week by Spain’s property registrars confirm various effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the country’s real estate market which have been suspected since the first wave of contagion hit Europe almost a year ago and which are now being borne out in official data.
One of these effects is that the preference among home buyers is shifting from the traditional focus on apartments and flats in city centres to more spacious detached or semi-detached properties with outdoor space. This is a logical consequence of the lockdown imposed throughout Spain last March and the subsequent restrictions imposed at various times on travel and socializing, and it can be seen in figures produced by the registrars regarding the types of properties bought during the final quarter of 2020.
The data show that detached and semi-detached houses accounted for 22.5 per cent of all homes bought between October and December, the highest proportion since comparable figures were first produced and a significant increase on the fourth quarter of 2019 (18.6 per cent). There are considerable differences among the figures for the 17 regions of Spain, with apartments still accounting for more than 80 per cent of purchases in many parts of the country, but in the Region of Murcia over a quarter (25.8 per cent) of all buyers opted for houses rather than flats (as opposed to 20.8 per cent in the previous quarter).
The fourth quarter figures also show a slight decrease in the number of sales and purchases registered both across the country and in the Costa Cálida, where the total dropped by just 54 to 3,843. But on the other hand, the numbers relating to non-Spanish buyers fell, no doubt due in some measure to the restrictions imposed on international travel in order to combat the spread of Covid-19.
Foreign purchasers accounted for 10.7 per cent of all transactions between October and December (down from 12.45 per cent in the equivalent period in 2019), although demand among UK nationals held up reasonably well. The British accounted for 14.5 of all non-Spanish buyers, or 1.6 per cent of all homes bought in Spain during the quarter: on other words, some 1,820 homes were bought by Brits in the last three months before the departure of the UK from the EU took full effect.