Property

Balearics continue to attract the most foreign home buyers

Majorca - very attractive to foreign buyers in 2019. | Archive

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma31/03/2020 04:01

According to the College of Registrars 2019 yearbook, 35.1% of homes in the Balearics were bought by foreigners, the highest percentage in the country. The percentage in Valencia was 27.1%, and this was followed by the Canaries (25.3%) and Murcia (18.6%).

In the whole of Spain, some 12.5% of home purchases were by foreigners. The 63,000 in 2019 was down from 65,400 in 2018. Nationally there were 503,875 sales in all, a decrease of 2.5%.

Of the purchases by foreigners, 6.1% were for properties valued at 500,000 euros or more. This was virtually the same as in 2018 (six per cent). There was an increase in the percentage of homes acquired by people from outside the European Union - 36.1% as compared with 34.9% in 2018.

The average size of mortgage for purchases by foreigners was 134,158 euros. In the Balearics this was significantly higher - 254,265 - and well ahead of Madrid in second place with 167,352 euros.

For all mortgages, the average monthly payment was 591 euros, an increase of four per cent over 2018 but well off the record level of over 800 euros, which had been the case in 2008. The average percentage of monthly salary devoted to mortgage repayments was 30.4%, but in the Balearics - where this was the highest - it was 44.5%.