Spanish Property Prices – Clearly Bonkers
July 13th, 2010
Last week, I mentioned that I’d been asked some questions about the Spanish property market by the Norwegian Financial Times. You can read that article here if you speak Norwegian.
Unfortunately, it renders as gobbledygook in all the auto translators I’ve tried. If anyone has any more success, please post a translation to the article so we can all benefit.
For me, the questions I was asked highlighted the complete lack of transparency that exists around house prices in Spain. So we set out to do something about that.
What we came up with is a new report which analyses all the major sources of house price information – including our own – and tries to make sense of the aggregated information.
I hope you find it useful and that you’ll leave your comments and requests for the next issue of it due in Q3 this year.
In summary, the most reliable figures indicate that the Spanish property market has shrunk in volume by 56% from peak to trough.
Also, in terms of volume, there is some indication that the market has already bottomed out, but prices are still suppressed. In terms of a believable price drop.
I favour the figures from the larger Spanish property portals which indicate a drop of around 20% in asking price.
Unfortunately, our own price index is one of the least useful as it indicates a national drop in asking prices of just 7% – clearly bonkers.
The report doesn’t provide definitive answers but it is, I believe, the first time that all these sources have been reviewed and tabulated – hopefully a step in the right direction in making Spanish property prices more transparent.
Of course, what the market needs is for the Spanish government to publish actual transaction prices of individual properties so that the hard facts are available for further analysis.
While this will not reveal the actual price paid for the property in most cases – thanks to an under-the-table element of many property transactions – it will put the most useful data in the public domain.
I strongly believe that when property buyers have better data, they make better buying decisions. When that data is lacking or incomplete, they either make sub-optimal decisions or they decide not to proceed at all.
This lack of data transparency, in my opinion, is a significant factor in the continued suppression of the Spanish property market.
Martin Dell, Kyero.com
Related Posts
- Transparent Spanish Property Prices
- Spanish Property Prices in Perspective
- International Interest in Spanish House Prices
