The price of housing rose by 1.5% last year, according to data published by the General Council of Notaries, despite the weakening of sales, which fell by 11.2%, and the even greater drop in mortgages, 21.3%.
According to data from the deeds processed by Spanish notaries, the year closed with 640,451 transactions and only 280,340 mortgages were signed for the purchase of a home: 56% of the purchases were financed without a mortgage. This, in addition, decreased on average by 3.1%, and stood on average at 148,592 euros.
Housing began the year with slight price declines, which accelerated in October and November, with both falls of 2%, a trend that was broken in December when the price of homes sold increased by 5.8% compared to the year. previous, the biggest increase of the year.
Real estate sources assured that this data reflects the segmentation that the real estate market is experiencing: the sale of the cheapest homes, bought by families who need mortgages, has fallen, while the sales of the most expensive homes, whose buyers resort less to credit, remain. , which increases the average price per square meter of the apartments that were sold last year.
According to the Council, “2023 showed a marked cooling in the number of sales and purchases, with falls in the first quarter that continued to increase only to moderate in the last quarter of the year”, in which the comparison with the last quarter of 2022, in which that sales had already begun to fall, has softened the setbacks. Thus, in December sales fell 5.2% compared to the same month of the previous year, while mortgages fell 8.1%.
By type of housing, apartment sales fell by 10.5% and were 492,498 units, while single-family sales fell by 13.6%, reaching 147,953 units, leaving behind the sales boom of the years of the pandemic. This was reflected in the prices: those of apartments closed 2023 with an increase of 2%, while those of single-family homes fell by 1.3%.
Home sales fell last year in all autonomous regions except Asturias, where they rose 1.4%. The biggest drops occurred in the Balearic Islands (-19.9%), the Canary Islands (-16.8%), Madrid (-16.2%), the Basque Country (-15.7%), La Rioja (-14.5%). %), Catalonia (-12.8%) and Andalusia (12.4%).
Prices, for their part, rose in all communities except in the Balearic Islands and Aragon, where they fell by 0.4% and 0.3% respectively. The increases were led by Navarra (with an increase of 13.7%), Castilla-La Mancha (8.3%), La Rioja (7.3%), Valencian Community (4.9%), Madrid (4.6% ) and Cantabria (4.5%).
In Catalonia, for its part, the price increase in 2023 as a whole was 1.8%, while in December it reached 6.4%.
