Home sales registered in February in the Canary Islands a year-on-year decrease of 12% and rose by 5.8% nationwide to a total of 52,796 transactions, which means breaking with twelve consecutive months of declines after successive interest rate hikes, according to data published this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Thanks to the increase in February, the first in a year, home sales accumulated a growth of 1.6% in the first two months of 2024.
However, compared to the previous month, January, sales experienced a decrease of 2.9% in intermonthly rate.
It should be remembered that 2023 closed with a fall of 9.7% in home sales and 586,913 transactions, an exercise that broke with two years of increases.
The islands lead the declines
In February, home sales rose in thirteen communities and fell in four others.
The only decreases were recorded in Canary Islands (12%); Balearic Islands (10.3%); Andalusia (1.5%) and Castilla y León (1%).
On the contrary, the largest increases occurred in Navarra (50.6%); Galicia (38.4%) and Murcia (19.5%).
Among the major markets, sales rose 12.3% in the Valencian Community, 6.8% in Catalonia and a modest 0.4% year-on-year in the Community of Madrid.
In February, 190,717 properties were registered in the land registry, 4.4% more than in the same month of the previous year.
Specifically, registered property sales rose by 7% year-on-year with 105,465 transactions. Increases were also recorded in other transactions (land consolidation, horizontal divisions, payments in kind, foreclosures or judicial awards, among others) which totaled 37,521, 5.4% more than in February 2023.
On the contrary, swaps decreased by 3.9 (542), inheritances, 1.6% (42,326 transactions), and donations, 1.2% (4,863 units), according to the INE statistics, which are based on information contained in the Land Registries of the entire national territory.
