Foreign Home Buyers Boost Spanish Real Estate, Despite Moroccan Decline

Home purchases represent 13.75% of total acquisitions in 2022, compared to 13.25% in 2016, or 88,858 transactions compared to 65,308 in 2018. "This excellent result breaks with the downward trend of the last five years, placing foreign demand as a notable factor of strength in the current real estate context," says the Yearbook of Real Estate Cadastre Statistics.

In detail, Moroccans (5.15%) and Romanians (5.07%) carried out fewer transactions, with 4,507 and 4,437 home purchases respectively. Despite Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, the British (11.07%) remained the top buyers of homes in Spain, with nearly 9,700 houses. They are followed by the Germans (9.47%), with 8,290 units, the French (6.97%), with just over 6,100 transactions, and the Belgians (5.21%), with 4,558 transactions.

More than a third of foreigners bought their homes in coastal areas, particularly in the provinces of Alicante (41.75%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (34.95%), the Balearic Islands (34.38%), Malaga (33.48%), Girona (28.21%), Las Palmas (22.55%), Murcia (19.09%), Almería (18.69%), Tarragona (14.71%) and Castellón (13.32%).

Barcelona and Madrid are also among the provinces that have recorded the most home purchases by foreigners (Moroccans and Romanians in particular), with nearly 6,830 and nearly 4,200 houses bought respectively, behind Valencia (4,355) and Murcia (4,281). Nearly half (42.28%) of the more than 9,000 homes sold for more than half a million euros were bought by non-EU nationals.