SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE/MADRID, May 11. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Canary Islands led the increase in the sale of homes in the first quarter of the year, growing by 29.8% compared to the previous quarter and adding a total of 7,997 operations, according to data from the College of Registrars made public this Thursday.
Foreign citizens accounted for 28.3% of home sales in the Canary Islands in the first quarter, double the national average, and only behind the Balearic Islands (29.2%) and Valencia (28.4%).
In addition, the average price fell slightly by 0.4% and stood at 2,168 euros per square meter.
At the national level, home sales during the first quarter of the year stood at 161,024 operations, which represents an increase of 7.2% over the previous quarter, but a decrease of 2% over the same period of the previous year.
In new housing, 30,466 sales were registered, with an increase of 17.8% over the previous quarter; while used housing registered 130,558 operations, representing a quarterly increase of 5.1%.
Thus, the accumulated data for the last twelve months show 642,966 home sales, the second highest figure since mid-2008, far exceeding the results prior to the pandemic, which showed just over 520,000 registered sales.
For its part, foreign demand for housing has reached 14.5% of sales, decreasing 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter, which is the fourth highest result in the historical series.
In percentage terms, it is the second consecutive quarter with decreases compared to the all-time high of the third quarter of 2022 (15.9%), but it continues to far exceed the usual percentage since 2014, which was above 12%.
THE BRITISH LEAD THE BUYING OF HOME BY FOREIGNERS
The British once again lead the results, with 9.5% of sales, followed by Germans (7.5%), French (7.2%), and Moroccans, Italians and Rumanians (5.4%).
Regarding the evolution of prices, the statistics of the registrars show that the average price fell by 1.5% in the first quarter compared to the previous period, up to 1,921 euros per square meter, mainly due to lower housing prices. used (-1.9%), but also to the fall in new housing, whose prices decreased by 0.9%.
On the other hand, compared to the same period of the previous year, the 1,947 euros per square meter represent a year-on-year increase of 4.9%, caused by the greater strength of used housing (+5.4%), while new housing registers a more moderate increase of 3.8%.
By Autonomous Community, in the first quarter, the highest average prices were located in Madrid (3,221 euros per square meter), followed by the Balearic Islands (3,027 euros), the Basque Country (2,990 euros) and Catalonia (2,375 euros).
In the opposite direction, the lowest prices were registered in Castilla-La Mancha (850 euros per square meter) and Extremadura (743 euros), the only communities below 1,000 euros per square meter.
80% ARE FLOORS
During the first quarter of the year, with respect to the proportion of flats and single-family homes, home sales have been broken down into 80.6% collective housing (flats) and 19.4% single-family homes, which returns to levels below 20%.
The all-time highs for the weight of single-family homes were recorded at the end of 2020, with 22.5%, and although it had been approaching those levels in recent quarters, there was a slight decline at the beginning of 2023.
