Home sales softened their increase to 2.3% in April, a period in which the past Easter week fell, and accounted for 54,318 transactions, the highest figure for this month since 2008, although the Canary Islands, with a decrease of 19.3%, registered the largest drop in the country, according to data released this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics.
Compared to March, housing transactions fell by 13.5% in intermonthly rate. It should be remembered that a month earlier, operations soared by more than 40% and achieved their best March since 2007.
In a context marked by falling interest rates and the consequent reduction in the cost of financing, home sales have been rising for ten months and accumulate an increase of 15.9% in the year.
The increase in April is the first single-digit increase recorded by home sales this year in a market that suffers from a significant deficit - about 600,000 units - to meet growing demand, which is pushing prices upwards.
Home sales began the year with an 11% increase in January, which was accentuated to 13.9% in February and soared 40.6% in March.
Used housing achieves the best April in the historical series
By type of housing, second-hand sales - which continue to be the most numerous, concentrating 79% of the total - grew by 1% in April to 42,908 units, the highest figure recorded in that month in the entire historical series of the INE, which prepares this statistic from information contained in the Land Registry.
With this new increase, the purchase of used housing has chained eight months with positive rates.
However, new housing sales grew the most in April, 7.2% - chaining 11 months upwards - and totaled 11,410 transactions, the highest figure for this month since 2010.
By housing regime, free housing totaled 50,526 transactions in April, 93% of the total, and recorded an interannual increase of 2.3%. In the case of protected housing, sales increased by 1.9%, to 3,792 transactions.
Sales fall 13.5% compared to March
Compared to the previous month, March, housing transactions fell by 13.5%.
Specifically, new housing sales decreased in April by 21.6% in intermonthly rate, while in the case of used housing the cut was 11.1%.
By regime, both protected and free housing presented declines in operations compared to March. The most accentuated was experienced by free housing with a fall of 13.7%, while protected housing decreased by 10.6%.
Soften their accumulated increase in the year to 16%
With the increase in April, much more discreet than that observed months before, sales accumulate an advance of almost 16% so far in 2025 (15.9%).
New housing was the one that increased the most until April, 29.4%, while used housing did so in a lower percentage, 12.5%.
By regime, free housing rose 16.2% in the year and protected housing 12.5%.
Operations fall in seven communities
By autonomous communities, home sales rose in eight of them and fell in the remaining seven.
The largest increases occurred in La Rioja (25.2%), Castilla y León (23.5%) and Extremadura (23.2%).
For their part, the main decreases corresponded to the Canary Islands (–19.3%), the Balearic Islands (–11%) and Asturias (–9.7%).
Among the large markets, sales rose in Madrid by 13.8% and in Catalonia by 1.3%.