The sale of free housing by foreigners increased in 14 autonomous communities and decreased in the Canary Islands by -11.6%, where it decreased the most, until last June.
In total, 5,016 homes were sold to foreigners during the first semester of the year in the archipelago. The first nationality among the residents who bought a home was Italian (26%), followed by German (9%).
Among foreigners who do not reside in the Canary Islands, the proportions are reversed, with Germans leading with 20% of the transactions, and Italians occupying second place with 14%.
Nationally, the purchase of housing by foreigners rebounded 1.8% year-on-year in the first half of the year, leaving behind two semesters of declines, and represented more than 20% of the total of this type of transaction, in which British, Moroccans and Germans were clear protagonists.
Specifically, in the first six months of the year, foreigners made 69,412 purchases of free housing, according to data published by the General Council of Notaries. This increase follows the fall recorded in the second half of 2023, when they decreased by 10%.
The sale of free housing by foreigners increased in 14 autonomous communities and decreased in the Canary Islands (-11.6%), Balearic Islands (-0.7%) and Andalusia (-0.2%).
The increase was led by La Rioja (23.8%); Extremadura (22.5%); Castilla y León (19.3%); Asturias (14.8%); Basque Country (13.2%), Castilla-La Mancha (12%) and Galicia (11.5%).
Among the large markets, they rose 8.8% in Madrid, 0.9% in Catalonia and 1.2% in the Valencian Community.
In a context now marked by interest rate cuts by the European Central Bank (ECB), the trend of two semesters of continuous year-on-year declines in 2023 is ended after the increases recorded in 2021 and 2022. However, in this first part of 2024, there is a more moderate increase than that observed in 2021 (44.6%) and 2022 (31.7%).
The transactions carried out by foreigners represented 20.4% of the total sales, remaining below the average recorded in 2023 (21.1%).
Resident foreigners made 58.2% of the sales, which represented an increase of 4.2% year-on-year, while non-residents closed the remaining 41.8%, which resulted in a decrease of 1.4%.
Nationally, the British lead, followed by Moroccans
The British led the purchase of housing by foreigners with 8.4% of the transactions (5,864), followed by Moroccans (7.9%) and Germans (6.8%).
The rest of the foreign buyers from outside the EU accounted for 11.2%, thus continuing the upward trend shown in previous semesters. The largest increases in transactions were led by Poles (28.5%); Ukrainians (20.8%); Colombians (19.8%); Americans (12.7%); Irish (12.4%); Chinese (11.7%) and Moroccans (11.3%).
On the contrary, Russians (-24.2%), Norwegians (-17%), French (-15.5%) and Bulgarians (-10.8%) led the declines.
Among resident foreigners, Moroccans were the main buyers, followed by Romanians and Italians, leading the share of sales in most of the autonomous communities with the exception of Galicia and Madrid, where they were, respectively, the Portuguese and the Chinese.
