Property purchases Spain

Property purchases in Spain showed some glimmer of light for January 2013.

After the end of 2012 when for the 5^th year running overall sales fell considerably, January by contrast gave some rare respite to negative news.

After stripping out other properties the number of urban house sales in Spain for January 2013 increased by 18.9% from January the previous year. Sales of Rustica properties dropped by 3% but overall numbers of sales for dwellings increased by 9% year on year and was some 59.2% more than the month of December 2012.

With sales of 68.600k this was the highest level of house sales for the month of January since the crisis began. In January 2009 only 16.2k properties were sold and in the last 2 years the number of sales has bobbed around the 45k mark.

The biggest increases percentage wise were seen in the sale of used housing which was good news for private owners who have suffered badly as developers and Banks have used special mortgage conditions to move new stock and the government has been offering tax breaks again to move newly built properties.

Sales of new and used `properties however both increased in January.

Andalucía, Balearics and the Canaries were amongst the regions that saw the biggest increase in property sales suggesting possibly that the 2^nd home buyers are starting to come back.

On the 26^th of January the Spanish Mortgage figures are published so it will be interesting to see if the amount of mortgages granted had a corresponding increase or whether the increase in house sales came predominately from cash buyers.