Foreign property investors continue to be one of the key driving forces of the real estate market, representing 14.48% of total sales in the second quarter of this year, one point more than a decade ago (13.03%), according to the real estate portal Pisos.com based on data from the Association of Registrars.
The five autonomous communities with the highest number of sales by foreign clients are the Balearics (33.37%), the Canary Islands (31.11%), the Valencian Community (28.79%), the Region of Murcia (23.58%) and Catalonia (16.11%).
“Spain continues to be a very attractive country for investors, as these data show. Prices, even with their strong upward trend, continue to define a residential offer that is much more competitive than that of other markets, which allows foreign buyers to act as a necessary catalyst”, explained Ferran Font, Director of Studies and spokesperson for Pisos.com.
These figures, despite a slight drop in the last year, are very close to the recorded maximum of the series, recorded in the third quarter of 2023, when they represented 15.44% of total sales and purchases. The trend, however, is upwards, compared to ten years ago, in the second quarter of 2014, foreigners accounted for 13.03% of transactions.
“Comparing the data for 2024 with those of 2014, we see that the trend that remains is that citizens resident in the United Kingdom are the main interested parties,” said Font, who reveals that what has occurred is a “diversification of buyers”. The spokesman explained that in 2014 the British represented 15.77%, while in 2024 this figure is reduced to 8.37%.
In 2014, the top five nationalities after the UK were France (10.11%), Russia (8.08%), Germany (7.53%), Belgium (7.26%) and Sweden (5.93%), while in the last quarter the top five nationalities were the UK (8.37%), Germany (6.98%), Morocco (6.1%), Romania (5.31%), France (5.22%) and Italy (5.18%).
And what makes the findings even more interesting regarding the UK market is that Britons non-resident in Spain are subjected to the 90-day rule which Britons would like to se scrapped but it does not appear to be putting Britons off investing in Spanish properties.