Further statistics released this week by the General Council for Notaries, show surprisingly large increases in purchases by non-Spanish resident buyers. Estate agencies know they are getting more enquiries from abroad and making more sales to foreign buyers, but it seems that no-one was quite prepared for the results contained in the statistical information released. Results which go a long way to explaining the ongoing recovery of the Spanish property market.

These statistics included a breakdown of the nationalities which are most active in the market. Most purchases by non resident foreign buyers in Spain were by clients from the UK, which marks a big change.. the second most active was the collective “non-European” sector, closely followed by France. This is a marked turnaround from the previous dominance of the Scandinavian countries and reflects a return to the market division, if not the volume of sales of the pre-recession years. This information has also led to fear of a sharp decrease in property availability as sellers await an expected imminent upturn in prices, thus starving the market of availability and inevitably driving prices up as supply weakens and demand strengthens.

Further surprises were found in the analysis of the increase in individual markets, compared with the same period in 2013. These figures show for example that the Irish market in Spanish property has increased by an incredible 70.4% year on year and the American market has entered the issued statistics for the first time with a year on year increase of 51.4%. Quite incredible figures that support what we and our fellow estate agents are seeing here on the ground.

The release of this information has again led industry experts to warn potential buyers to act now while market conditions favour them and there is still ample availability of good quality property at low prices.