14/12/2012 00:00
TW
0

Palma/Madrid.—The buying and selling of homes in the Balearics reached 683 transactions in October this year, a rise of 30.1 percent in comparison with the same month in 2011, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported yesterday.

The Balearics was the region of the country with the second highest year-on-year increase in movement in the property market, beaten only by transactions in Castilla-La Mancha where the year on rise was registered as 34.8%.

Across the country as a whole, the sale of properties in October this year, a total of 25'261, was 12.8% higher than in the same month in 2011. The INE, which provides reports to Central Government said that there have now been three consecutive months when property sales have risen, ahead of the elimination of tax relief on the purchase of homes and the end of an extra low VAT figure of 4% in January 2013.

According to the INE, home sales managed to break a continued downward trend of 17 consecutive months last August when the government announced it was going to stop tax relief on property purchase and hike VAT.

With potential purchasers and sellers wanting to take advantage of relief still available to them, year on year property sales went up by 3 percent in August and a light upturn of 0.9 percent in September.

In relative terms, there were 77 house buying or selling transactions in the Balearics for every 100'000 inhabitants, above the Spanish average of 67 transactions for every 100'000 inhabitants.

La Rioja with 105 buying and selling operations, Valencia (93) and Castilla-La Mancha (84) were the regions where most transactions were registered for every 100'000 head of population.

But in terms of absolute numbers, the regions where property transactions rose the most in October 2012 in comparisonwith a year ago were Castilla-La Mancha (34.8%) followed by the Balearics (30.1%). The greatest downturns were registered in Navarre (-36%), Cantabria (-16.7%) and Extremadura (-15.0%). During the month of October this year, the total number of property transactions registered pro rata 100'000 head of population were greatest in Castilla y León (600), Castilla-La Mancha (577), Aragon (505) and La Rioja (458), whilst in the Balearics the figure stood at 385.