The purchase and sale of homes registered a decrease of 6.6% in February compared to the same month last year, up to a total of 50,186 operations, in a context of higher interest rates to contain inflation, as reported on Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
With this year-on-year decline, the sale of homes returns to negative rates after more than 56,300 operations were registered in January, 6.6% more than in the same month of 2022.
The decline in the sale of homes in February was due to the drop in both second-hand flats and new homes.
Specifically, the sale of used homes fell by 5.5% in the second month of the year, to a total of 40,479 operations, while the transactions carried out on new apartments decreased by 11.1%, to 9,707 operations.
92.2% of the homes transferred by sale in February were free homes and 7.8% were protected. In total, the sale of private homes fell by 6.5% year-on-year, to 46,255 operations, while the sale of subsidized homes fell by 7.9%, to a total of 3,931 transactions.
On a month-on-month basis (February over January), home sales fell by 11%, its biggest drop in a February in the last five years.
According to the INE, two out of every three home sales carried out in February (66.9%) were made between individuals. In total, in February 33,590 operations of this type were carried out between natural persons, 6.3% less than in the same month of 2022.
In the first two months of the year, the purchase and sale of homes fell by 0.1%, after operations on new homes fell by 2% and those on used homes increased by 0.4%.
ANDALUSIA, AT THE HEAD OF PURCHASES
Last February, the highest number of home sales per 100,000 inhabitants occurred in the Valencian Community (202), Murcia (165) and La Rioja (152).
In absolute values, Andalusia was the region that carried out the most housing operations during the second month of the year, with 9,795 sales, followed by the Valencian Community (8,241), Catalonia (7,857) and Madrid (6,388).
Fifteen communities sold fewer homes in February 2023 than in the same month of 2022. The most pronounced decreases occurred in La Rioja (-23.6%), Cantabria (-17.9%), Extremadura (-16%) and Madrid (-15.6%), while the most moderate were for Murcia (-1%) and Catalonia (-1.2%).
The purchase and sale of homes only increased in February in the interannual rate in the regions of Asturias (19.9%) and Comunidad Valenciana (2.9%).
THE TOTAL PROPERTY TRANSFERRED FALLS BY 8.8%
The properties transferred in the property registers, from public deeds carried out previously, reached 182,869 last February, 8.8% less than in the same month of the previous year.
8.7% fewer farms were transferred by sale than a year earlier, while those transferred by donation fell 25.3% annually; those transmitted by inheritance increased by 0.4%, and operations by exchange decreased by 12.8%.
86.9% of the sales in February corresponded to urban properties, which include homes, and 13.1% to rustic properties. The sales of urban properties fell by 8.6% year-on-year, while those of rustic properties decreased by 9.9% in relation to February 2022, to a total of 86,126 and 12,928 operations, respectively.
