Property

Three per cent drop in home sales

Sales of new homes amounted to 17.5% of the total. | Pere Bota

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma13/02/2019 18:25

There was a 2.9% decrease in home sales in the Balearics last year. Figures from the National Statistics Institute show that there was a fall for the first time in five years and that the Balearics was the only region of Spain to have experienced a decline. The feeling within the property industry is that the reduction can be attributed to high prices.

In absolute terms, there were 15,427 transactions - down 466. The president of the Proinba property developers association, Luis Martí, says that the overall sales are still high but that the strain from prices has brought about a fall. He notes that while there is a general shortage of new apartments, new houses are selling well.

Of homes sold in 2018, only 17.5% (2,707) were new. Regardless of whether they are new or old, prices are equally high. Prices in the Balearics are among the highest in Spain and show no sign of coming down.

To put last year's sales into context, while they fell compared with 2017, there was a rise between 2013, when there were 7,831, and 2017; this was in the order of just over 100%. In 2008, prior to the crisis really kicking in, there were 12,366.