Gesvalt has published our Housing Report for the second quarter of 2023. The study, carried out with our own data by the company's Research Department, reflects an increase in house prices of 6.4% compared to the same period in 2022.
This is the second year-on-year increase of more than 61 Q3YOY in 2023 and the second highest since the pandemic, following the 6.71 Q3YOY increase in the first quarter of the year. With this new record, Spain has now made a string of nine consecutive quarters with rises above 31 QoQ. Compared to the previous quarter, the increase was 2.1%, reflecting an expected stabilisation of the price after the upturn due to the advance in purchasing decisions caused by the increase in interest rates observed during the previous months. In this sense, at Gesvalt we point to a foreseeable stabilisation of this statistic in the coming months, with decreases even being possible in some areas.
As a result, the price of housing has reached 1,568 €/m2, The average value of a property is still 26.8% below the record high recorded in the first quarter of 2008. This figure implies that a property with an average value and a surface area of 90 m², which would have been worth €132,660 last year, would currently cost €141,120 to purchase.
Unlike the previous quarter, the increase in house prices has not been unanimous in all Spanish regions. Castilla La Mancha has suffered a slight decline of 0.21 Q3Q3, the second region with the lowest house prices, at €887/m3 (€887/m3).2, only ahead of Extremadura, with 861 €/m2. On the other hand, Castilla y León was the autonomous community that experienced the lowest growth, with only 0.1% and a price of 1017€/m2. On the other hand, the Balearic Islands, with 2,676 €/m2, remains the Autonomous Community with the highest house prices in Spain for the seventh consecutive quarter. It was followed once again by the Madrid region, with €2,481/m2, and the Basque Country, with €2,397/m2, the only regions to exceed €2,000/m2.
Six communities with growth above 7%
In the second quarter of the year, the uneven territorial growth in house prices has continued. Despite this, six autonomous communities have experienced growth of more than 7%, led by the Valencian Community, which has reached €1,257/m€.2 after an increase of 8.2%. This was followed by Andalusia (7.8%), Murcia (7.6%), the Balearic Islands (7.2%), the Canary Islands (7.2%) and Navarre (7%).
At the provincial level, the year-on-year increases in Malaga (+12.4%), Alicante (+11.3%) and Las Palmas (+8.4%) stand out. On the other hand, the provinces with the most negative variations were Zamora (-4.8%), Cuenca (-4.3%), Albacete (-2.46%) and León (-1.4%).
Widespread rental growth
With regard to rental prices, the growth trend remains stable with increases in most provinces, with Cáceres, Castellón and Teruel being the only provinces with year-on-year contractions in their prices. Rises of over 15% were recorded in the Balearic Islands (+22.4%), Malaga (+21.1%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (+20.2%), Gerona (+20%) and Cantabria (+16.1%).
Analysing the absolute figures, Barcelona once again tops the ranking of provinces with 18.91 €/m²/month, followed by the Balearic Islands (17.27 €/m²/month) and Madrid (16.59 €/m²/month). In the lower part of the ranking, most provinces have settled at prices above 5.50 €/m²/month and only six regions can be found with rents below 5,50 €/m²/month, these being Teruel (5.06 €/m²/month), Jaén (5.11 €/m²/month), Cáceres (5.13 €/m²/month), Zamora (5.20 €/m²/month), Cuenca (5.32 €/m²/month) and Ciudad Real (5.44 €/m²/month).
The theoretical effort to buy a house exceeds the 35% threshold.
According to the latest available data, corresponding to the end of 2022, the theoretical effort required by households to buy a home has increased by almost three points compared with the previous quarter, standing at 36.10%, already exceeding the threshold of 35%, the recommended figure for maintaining healthy personal finances. This loss of purchasing power of Spaniards has also meant that the number of years of salary that an average income family would need to spend in order to be able to buy an average home has increased again, reaching almost 8 years.