Figures from the National Statistics Institute indicate that there were 726 sales of homes in the Balearics in July. This was a decrease of 42.9% compared with July last year, the second highest fall in the country after the Canaries, where the percentage decline was 54.8%.
In the whole of Spain, there was a 32.4% drop. The decrease in July meant there had been five consecutive months when the sales of homes dropped; in four out of the five months this was by 30% or more. Nevertheless, there was an increase of 20% compared with June, attributable to the fact that July was the first month since March not to have been affected by the state of alarm.
For the first seven months of the year, sales fell by 26%. The downward trend started in March, a fall of 18.6%, and this was accentuated in the year-on-year decreases for April (36%), May (53%) and June (34%).
The only region of Spain where there was an inter-annual increase in sales in July was the Basque Country. The rise was 14.7%. Immediately behind the Canaries and the Balearics, the falls were 41.1% in Madrid, 36.5% in Catalonia, and 35.9% in Valencia.
In total, there were 32,654 sales in July. Of these, 25,887 were for secondhand homes. This figure was the lowest since July 2014 and a drop of 34.9%. For new builds, the number was down 21.2% to 6,767.