One out of three homes purchased by foreigners in Valencia region of Spain

Foreigners buying properties in Spain have soared, as Britons made the largest number of purchases in the first half of 2018, followed by the French and Germans,

Elpais reported one out of three homes are purchased by foreigners in Valencia region. The most popular locations in spain where foreigners buy property were

• Valencia region 15,613 sales
• Andalusia with 9,737 sales
• Catalonia with 7,570 sales,
• Madrid  with 4,911 property sales

The average price per square meter that foreigners are paying is €1,687, slightly down from the last half (€1,716). But prices have grown 0.9% year-on-year.

Nationality of foreign property Buyers

• British citizens 7,613 purchases, an 8.8% rise from the first half of 2017.
• French nationals, who acquired 4,211 properties (a drop of 4.6%) and
• Germans, who bought 4,138 homes (down by 2.1%).
•  Romanians (3,872 purchases) and
• Moroccans (3,662).

The nationalities that posted the highest year-on-year growth are Morocco (28.8%), Ireland (24.7%) and Denmark (18.2%).

Spain also has active golden visa scheme requiring €500,000 property investment in Spain, attracts mainly Chinese, Russians and those from Latin America countries

According to Spain statistics office report on housing sales in Oct 2018,

• In September 2018, 147,377 properties were registered in the land registers, 7.7% more than that in the same month of the previous year Registered housing sales increases by 9.7%, as compared with September 2017
• 88.1% of sales registered in September corresponded to urban properties and 11.9% to rustic properties. Among urban properties, 58.1% were housing sales.
• 18.7% of the dwellings transferred by sale in September were new, and 81.3% were used.
• In September, the total number of property transfers recorded in the land registries per 100,000 inhabitants reached its highest values in La Rioja (650), Castilla y León (570) and Castilla-La Mancha (522).
• Región de Murcia (24.8%), Cantabria and La Rioja (both with 19.5%) registered the highest annual variation rates. In turn, Comunidad Foral de Navarra (-12.5%), Aragón (-9.3%) and Illes Balears (-0.6%) registered the lowest annual rates.
• Regarding registered housing sales, the Autonomous Communities with the highest number of transfers per 100.000 inhabitants were Comunitat Valenciana (165), Región de Murcia (135) Illes Balears and Comunidad de Madrid (both with 131).
• The Autonomous Communities that registered the greatest annual increases in the number of housing sales in September were La Rioja (36.7%), Comunidad Foral de Navarra (33.2%) and Región de Murcia (23.9%).