House Prices In Spain Rise For The First Time In Six Years
Spain News
Published: 10 September 2014 12:02 CET
Updated: 20 December 2019 13:02 CET
Spain's National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica), published a report on Monday announcing a rise in property prices for the second quarter of the year.
The House Price Index or HPI, increased by two points between April and June to record a rise of 0.8% on the previous year.
This represents the first year-on-year increase for over six years, stretching back to 2008, just prior to the Spanish real estate crash.
New house prices also saw an increase on the previous years pricing by three points with a total increase of 1.9%.
The annual variation of second-hand property prices saw a slight increase of 0.2%; the first positive movement since 2007.
Of the 17 autonomous regions, just two of them; Cantabria and the Basque Country failed to see positive numbers with falls of 0.3% and 0.9% respectively.
Although the overall price increases are a positive sign for property owners and the real estate industry as a whole, it by no means signals a surge in real estate sales.
Experts believe that the data indicates a trend towards stabilisation and that the market has "bottomed out", rather than the start of a broad-based rebound in the market.
Prospective Spanish and foreign buyers are still finding the mortgage criteria too stringent. Coupled with such a high rate of unemployment here in Spain, it may be a while before the Spanish property market fully recovers.
