British Buyers Continue to Hold First Place Despite Decline
During the first quarter of this year, in 2023, Spain saw a 15% decline in Spanish home sales that involved a buyer from the UK, compared to the year before. However, despite this significant decrease, there were still 2,216 Spanish home sales that did include a buyer from the UK, according to the latest figures.
Making a Comeback
Post-pandemic, British demand for properties in Spain made a significant comeback before beginning to ease down mid-way through last year in 2022 until hitting a decline in the first months of 2023. Despite this decline, recent figures from the Spanish land registrars’ association shows that British buyers are still the largest group of buyers by foreign nationality from the first quarter of this year. Still a significantly larger group than French and German nationals buying homes in Spain.
The British Share
For a long while now, the British have been the largest foreign group of people buying homes in Spain, but they don’t dominate the market as much as they used to, with many other foreign nationals making the move to Spain. Pre-Brexit, in 2015, almost one out of four foreigners buying property in Spain were British. The first quarter of 2023 showed that those stats have fallen to 9.6% of the overall foreign market and 17.1% of key markets being British people, with the French and Germans not far behind.
Where are the British Hot Spots?
Based on figures from 2022 we can assume that British nationals mainly purchased Spanish homes throughout Andalusia and the Valencian region. With smaller numbers choosing to relocate to the Canary Islands, the Balearics, and the region of Murcia. The Costa Del Sol always has and still is an immensely popular area for Expatriates to live, and if you are looking for a property along this beautiful coastline Private Client Consultancy Property can help.
To Summarise
What we can see, based on the recent demand at the beginning of 2023 that held similar figures to those of 2019 and slightly smaller figures than those of 2018, is that demand has slowly but surely recovered from the pandemic. Nonetheless, numbers are still significantly lower than they were in 2016, just before the Brexit referendum, meaning that the UK buyer demand for purchasing homes in Spain is far from being mended due to Brexit’s offset. Despite the challenges Brexit has posed for those looking to change to a Mediterranean lifestyle, it hasn’t stopped the Brits from choosing to overcome those obstacles and move full steam ahead to their new life in the sun.
For advice on what you need to know about life in Spain, speak to one of our Wealth Managers today.
