According to the Spanish Association of Property Registrars, in the second quarter of 2023 foreigners accounted for 14.94% of home sales across Spain, the second-highest figure on record. In line with the trend of recent years, foreign demand was especially strong on the Mediterranean coast and the islands: in four provinces, buyers from other countries bought at least 30% of all homes in this period.
The most such sales were registered in the province of Alicante, at 45%, followed by Santa Cruz de Tenerife (38.01%), Málaga (32.02%) and the Balearic Islands (30.38%). In Girona, Murcia, Las Palmas, Almería and Tarragona the share of foreigners is also above the Spanish average, accounting for between 29.2% and 15.8% of sales between April and June. The lowest figures (under 2% in every case) were in A Coruña, Albacete, Pontevedra, Palencia, Cáceres, Córdoba and Zamora.
As for the regions, only in the Canary and Balearic Islands did foreign buyers’ share exceed 30% in the second quarter. After these archipelagos, they were most active in the Valencian Community (29.91%), the Region of Murcia (23.56%) and Catalonia (15.35%).
The current economic situation, with high inflation and high interest rates persisting in many countries, is reshaping how home sales are split between nationalities. The British remain the main buyers of residential property in Spain. Between April and June they completed almost 2,000 purchases, but their share fell for the first time from 9% to 8.8%, compared with about 25% in 2015.
After British nationals (8.8%), the most homes in Spain were bought by Germans (7.25%), French (6.56%), Moroccans (5.37%), Italians (5.22%), Romanians (5.15%), Belgians (5.09%), Dutch (4.61%), Poles (3.92%), Russians (3.43%), Chinese (3.09%), Swedes (2.94%), Ukrainians (2.72%) and Irish (1.66%).
