Housing becoming more expensive in Spain is nothing new. And this increase has been more pronounced and less pronounced in major capitals, tourist destinations and certain points along the coast. Even so, neither one nor the other prevents the comparison between what we paid for a house a decade or so ago and what we pay now from being surprising. The latest example was left by Fotocasa, which, after examining the real estate market prices of the last 15 years, came to a striking conclusion: buying an apartment in Spain today requires an average of 40,000 euros more than it did ten years ago. Or even more (much more), if we focus on the autonomous communities that are most in demand.
And yes, the research is talking about the exact same house.
Same house, different price. The calculation is very simple. And devastating. Fotocasa technicians took a standard house of 80 square meters as a reference and asked themselves how much this house was today and how much it was 10 years ago. Their conclusions are striking. If they had distributed an average of 138,100 euros in 2014, today 178,700 euros would have to be tabled for the same operation. Data are merely measurements, statistical indicators that vary from one population to another; but they give a clear idea of the market drift.
One (good) scratch per m2. Going into more detail, Fotocasa concludes that the price per square meter of housing in Spain increased by an average of 29% between 2014 and 2024. Ten years ago this figure was 1,726 euro/m2; today it is at 2,234. The difference represents an increase of more than 500 euros per m2. As María Matos, the firm’s research director, recalls, this figure is again an inadequate average if we focus on the most demanded regions.
Matos admits: “The cost of buying a house is (on average) 40,000 euros more than in 2014. There are communities, as in the case of the Balearic Islands, where the value of this house is 160,000 euros more than 10 years ago.” The analysis does not come with good news, at least for those considering buying a home: “Unfortunately, the trend shows that this price increase will be the trend of the market every year unless supply increases.”
Worst affected areas. The example of the Balearic Islands is notable because Fotocasa shows an increase of 109% between the 2014 cumulative price and the current price, but the island region is not the only region to face a significant increase during this period. In the Canary Islands, square meters increased from 111,262 euros to 197,604 euros in 2014; This represents an increase of 78%; In Madrid it increased from 187,172 to 314,250 (68%) and in Andalusia from 117,978 to 163,460; The price increase here reached 39%.
There are a small number of regions where the trend is exactly the opposite and the real estate market today shows lower prices than it did ten years ago. This category includes Extremadura, Castilla y León and Asturias; these are the clearest cases, and rates appear to have fallen by 5% this decade. Increases were recorded in other communities in the country, such as Aragon, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Galicia or the Basque Country, but only minimally, not exceeding 5%.
What about cities? The study only analyzes some state capitals, but there are significant differences between them. While second-hand house prices have increased by more than 100 percent in Palma and Malaga (123 percent in the first case), there are eight other capital cities with lower rates than a decade ago. The most pronounced collapse compared to 2014 was in Zamora, where prices “pierced” by 17%.
Expensive but not that expensive. This is another of the great reads of the work. An 80 square meter flat today may be more expensive than in 2023, 2019 and of course 2014, but it has not yet reached the levels that the market reached in 2009, when the real estate bubble ended at the turn of the century. According to the portal, the same average house cost then 201,954 euros, that is, about 23,200 more than now.
This does not mean that there are regions where current prices in some cases exceed by far the prices recorded fifteen years ago. This is also the case in the Canary Islands, Madrid and the Balearic Islands, which once again stand out with the price increase: The cumulative price difference between 2009 and 2014 there is 53 percent, meaning there are 80 m2 houses today. It costs almost 107,000 euros more.
Image | Maria Lupan (Unsplash)
in Xataka | There is one housing sector that is doing particularly well in Spain: million-euro houses
Source: Xatak Android
Ashley Johnson is a science writer for “Div Bracket”. With a background in the natural sciences and a passion for exploring the mysteries of the universe, she provides in-depth coverage of the latest scientific developments.