The Spanish property market is currently experiencing its best period in a dozen years, with the number of purchase/sale transactions increasing from quarter to quarter. One of the locomotives is real estate located on the Costa del Sol – the southern coast of Spain.
Spain’s coastal property market has revived after a hiatus – caused by the mobility problems and restrictions that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest ‘Vivienda en Costa 2022’ report by Tinsa shows that 51% of coastal areas have regained 2019 activity levels. Of particular note is the coast of Andalusia – the Costa del Sol, among others – which saw 28% more primary and secondary market property purchases. Also worth noting is the performance of the Spanish islands, which managed to improve their pre-pandemic results by 16%.
Huge interest in property on the coast
According to Tinsa, house sales in coastal municipalities now account for as much as 39% of all property transactions in Spain! In 2021, some 674,000 transactions were recorded across the country, an increase on the levels reached in 2019 (+18%) and 2020 (+38%), respectively. The representation of coastal markets in domestic sales is therefore one of the locomotives of the Spanish property market, led by the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts and closely followed by the island archipelagos.
As we can read in the Tinsa study, “in 2021, purchases and sales recorded an upward trend on all coasts, with the number of transactions concluded exceeding the market’s achievements before the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019. The Atlantic Coast (Andalusia) records the largest increases, above the national average. It is followed by the North Coast, with growth close to the average. Excellent results are also being achieved by the Mediterranean Coast (including the Costa del Sol), which in 2021 improved the result achieved the year before by 47%. Finally, the Canary archipelagos and the Balearic Islands, which recorded an increase of 49% in 2021 compared to 2020 and slightly improved the transaction levels of 2019.”
Who is most likely to buy property on the coast?
Real estate in Spain enjoys continued popularity among foreign investors, whose greatest attention is mostly focused on houses and flats located on the coast. According to the annual statistics of the Registradores de España, the most popular destinations chosen by foreigners are: Balearic Islands (32% of foreigners), Canary Islands (23%), Valencian Autonomy (20%), Region of Murcia (16%) and Andalusia (11%).
It is worth remembering that the different autonomies vary considerably in terms of the absolute number of transactions, e.g. in Andalusia more than 100,000 transactions were carried out in 2021, while only 15,000 were carried out in the Balearic Islands. Thus – although the percentage share of foreigners in transactions in Andalusia is smaller – when it comes to absolute numbers, foreigners in Andalusia alone made more property purchases. In 2021, Brits, Germans and French took the largest share of transactions made – read more about this in another post on our blog.
