FOREIGN RUSH

FOREIGN property buyers accounted for 88,858 home purchases in Spain last year - up by 45% on 2021 figures.

The College of Registrars says deals struck by non-Spaniards worth at least €500,000 increased by 63.5% compared to the previous year, accounting for 8,975 transactions.

The registrars added that the percentage of foreigners entering the Spanish housing market is normally around 13% annually, but rose last

HighspendingforeignersboostpropertymarketwithBritsontop

By Alex Trelinski

year to 13.8%.

Overall, nearly 650,000 sales were carried out last year - the highest figure since 2007, just before the property bubble burst in Spain.

The breakdown of results by nationality puts UK buyers at 11.07% of purchases made by foreigners.

They are followed by Germans with

9.47%, French (6.97%), Belgians (5.21%), Moroccans (5.15%), Romanians (5.07%) and Dutch (4.91%).

The registrars deduced that properties with an area of over 100 m2 are bought by Americans, the British, Danes and Dutch, while those below 80 m2 are usually acquired by Moroccans, Romanians, Bulgarians, Poles and Italians.

Unsurprisingly tourist areas are the areas that most foreign buyers go for- led by Alicante province with 41.7% of all house deals, with Tenerife on 35%.

In terms of regions, the Balearic Islands account for 34.38% of all non-Spanish sales.

That's followed by the Canary Islands (28.6%), Valencia (26.8%), Murcia (19%), Andalucia (15%) and Catalunya (13.5%).

Broadly speaking, British and German buyers led the list of foreign buyers in coastal and island areas, while Romanians and Moroccans were the leading non-Spanish purchasers in landlocked regions like Aragon, Extremadura and Madrid. Total transactions last year were 646,241 deals - 14.5% more than in 2021 with used property sales exceeding 530,000. The average price paid for a home in Spain was around €188,000 - a 4.5% rise, with bigger increases in the Balearic Islands, Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalunya.