The rise in mortgages that has caused the increase in interest rates has already begun to be reflected in housing prices, which fell 2% in October, according to data published today by the General Council of Notaries. The homes that the notaries registered in October were sold at an average price of 1,585 euros/m², with the biggest drop in the price of single-family homes, which fell 3.5% compared to a year ago, to 1,285 euros/m². m². Apartment prices, on the other hand, fell a little less, by 2%, to 1,749 euros per m².
The data published by the General Council correspond to the deeds that Spanish notaries processed in October, and are therefore more current than those provided by the College of Registrars or the INE (which is also based on registry data, but calculates the average in a quarter), since the deeds take several weeks to register.
According to the General Council, prices fell in eight autonomous communities: Balearic Islands (-7.2%), the Basque Country (-6.3%), Aragon (-2.6%), Castilla y León (-1.7 %), Galicia (-1.7%), the Canary Islands (-0.6%), Catalonia (-0.4%) and Castilla-La Mancha (-0.4%). On the other hand, they still rose in the remaining nine, led by La Rioja (22.8%), Extremadura (19.0%) and Navarra (13.7%). It must be taken into account that they are small communities, where few sales and purchases are recorded and the data is more volatile, since it depends greatly on the characteristics of the homes sold in a given month. Prices have also increased compared to last year in the Valencian Community (6.5%), Andalusia (4.7%), Cantabria (2.8%), Asturias (2.3%), Madrid (0.8% ) and Murcia (0.7%).
The notaries highlight that the fall in sales is beginning to moderate: they formalized 51,952 sales, 5.6% less year-on-year, and October of last year was precisely the first month in which sales of apartments in Spain fell after the months in which the pandemic practically paralyzed the real estate market. Thus, October has marked the thirteenth consecutive month of decline in transactions, a decline of 4% in the sale of apartments, to 39,804 units, while the sale of villas fell by 10.3%, to reach 12,149 units.
The same happened with the granting of mortgages for the purchase of housing, which has already accumulated 14 months of decline: in October 12.6% fewer were signed than a year ago, up to 22,625 operations, with an average amount of 143,208 euros that fell 3.3% year-on-year.
The majority of the homes that were registered in October (56.5%) were purchased without a mortgage, a phenomenon that has also been repeated over the last fourteen months: the families that have not been able to access the purchase are those that needed a mortgage , while the most solvent ones that do not need it, have continued buying and are gaining weight in the market.
By autonomous community, the largest decreases in the number of sales were recorded in the Balearic Islands (-19.5%), La Rioja (-9.8%), Castilla-La Mancha (-9.2%), the Basque Country (- -8.8%), Madrid (-7.8%), Castilla y León (-6.9%), Andalusia (-6.7%), Valencian Community (-6.2%) and Catalonia (-5 .7%).
On the other hand, in October sales increased in Extremadura (19.7%), Navarra (6.9%), Asturias (4.4%) and Aragón (2.0%).
