The sale of homes in the Balearics last year fell by 10.9% to 13,951; 2,562 of these were new builds. According to figures from the National Statistics Office, this was one of the largest decreases in the country. December sales were down 2.6% (to 1,005) compared with the previous year.
Nationally, there was a drop of 3.3% to 501,085 in 2019. This represented the first decrease since 2014; the highest increase over the 2014 to 2019 period was 15.4% in 2017. When the financial crisis started to bite, there were falls of 28.8% and 25.1% in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The decline in sales in 2019 is being attributed to there having been fewer secondhand homes on the market; sales of new homes went up 1.2% to 92,844.
Andalusia registered the most sales with 100,339, followed by Catalonia (79,751), Valencia (74,910) and Madrid (70,835). In relative terms, sales increased most in Castile-La Mancha (up 7.5%), Extremadura (5.7%) and La Rioja (3.1%). The decrease in the Balearics was only surpassed by the Canaries with -14%.
Across the country, sales in December were up 1.8% to 34,767.