Second-hand housing is still the type of home most bought in Spain, although the new construction begins to add points thanks to the return of residential construction. Thus, new home sales sales increased by 18.8% during the third quarter of the year with respect to the same period of the previous year, surpassing the growth of used housing, which increased 15%.
If the previous quarter is analyzed, it appears that new homes are the ones with the highest increase (4.1%), with 20,885 purchases (17.5% of the total), showing the first signs of recovery. And there are three consecutive quarters of growth. However, the used housing, which maintains the hegemony with 98,271 transactions (82.5% of the total), recorded a slight decrease (-1.1%).
These are some of the conclusions of the Real Estate Registry Statistics elaborated by the College of Registrars of Spain, which shows that between July and September 119,156 home purchases were registered in property registers, 15.6% more than in the same period 2016. It is the highest result since 2011. In the last 12 months, 445,725 operations have been registered, the highest year-on-year figure of the last six and a half years, with an interannual increase of 13%.
And that prices continued to register increases, specifically 6.8% year-on-year and 2% over the previous quarter, according to the registrars. The growth rate of the last quarters leaves the index decline in 22.4% from the maximum levels, marked in 2007.