market
Coming soon: Free personalised market reports for owners and sellers
Thinking of selling your property in Spain, or just wondering what the market around your home looks like? I’m preparing a new free service to help owners get a clearer, data-led picture before making any big decisions.
I’d like to give readers a heads-up about a new service I’m preparing for owners of property in Spain: personalised market report presentations.
The idea is simple. If you own a property in Spain, especially if you are thinking of selling, I will prepare a short one-to-one market presentation showing what is going on around your property, in your location, and in your broad market segment.
That matters because you do not sell in “the Spanish property market”. You sell in a local market, in a particular segment, at a particular point in the cycle.
Before deciding how to sell, which agents to speak to, or what price expectations are realistic, it helps to understand the market you are entering.
The presentation will last around 20 minutes and talk you through the key numbers in plain English: wider market trends, local transaction data, active competition on the portals, and the broad segment your property belongs to.
It is not a valuation, legal review, tax consultation, or full sales strategy. It will not tell you what your property is worth. But it should give you something many owners lack at the start of the sales process: a proper framework for understanding the market before making decisions.
Even if you have no immediate plans to sell, the service may still be useful. Your Spanish property is likely to be one of your biggest assets. Understanding the market that underpins it is never a bad idea.
The service is not quite ready yet, but I hope to start offering the first free personalised market report presentations shortly.
Places will be limited at first. If you are interested, fill in the form below to join the waiting list and I’ll be in touch when ready.
For now, the service will be completely free as I test it.
Personalised Market Report
Enquiry form for a personalised market report presentation
The first Housing Ministry sales figures of 2026 are now out, and they suggest the Spanish property market has shifted down a gear. Sales are still running well above long-term norms, but the market is cooling, with foreign demand weakening particularly fast.
These figures are based on transactions completed before notaries in Q1, making them the most up-to-date view we have of who is actually buying property in Spain this year.
The notaries’ figures published recently also pointed to a slowdown in sales, but they don’t break the market down by buyer type. The registrars’ Q1 figures do provide information on foreign demand, but they include transactions completed in previous periods that were only registered in Q1, meaning they lag the market.
As a result, these Housing Ministry figures provide the clearest and most current picture of what is happening in the foreign-buyer segment right now.
Sales fall, but remain above normal
A total of 163,322 homes were sold in Spain in Q1, down 11.3% year-on-year. But it’s worth remembering that sales remain almost 14% above the ten-year average.
In other words, activity has cooled significantly from recent highs but remains elevated by historical standards.
Foreign demand weakens sharply
The biggest story in the data is the deterioration in foreign demand.
Foreign buyers purchased 26,977 homes in Q1, down 17.6% compared to the same period last year. As a result, the foreign share of the market fell to 16.5%, down from 17.8% a year earlier.
The weakness was particularly pronounced amongst foreign non-residents (FNRs) — the segment most closely associated with holiday-home purchases and lifestyle buyers.
FNR purchases fell by almost 22% year-on-year to just 10,704 transactions. More strikingly, this segment is now running slightly below its ten-year average, making it the weakest of all the major buyer groups.
Expat demand also softens
Foreign residents, often referred to as expats, also reduced their purchases, though less dramatically.
Expat purchases declined by 14.4% year-on-year to 16,273 transactions. However, unlike the FNR segment, expat demand remains comfortably above its long-term average.
This suggests that people relocating to Spain continue to support the market, whilst discretionary second-home demand is fading more rapidly.
Spanish buyers holding up better
Domestic demand also weakened, but proved more resilient than foreign demand.
Spanish buyers accounted for 136,160 transactions, down 9.8% year-on-year. Despite the decline, local demand remains more than 15% above its ten-year average and continues to represent the backbone of the market.
A market entering a new phase?
The data suggest that the extraordinary post-pandemic boom is now fading, particularly amongst foreign buyers.
Higher prices, reduced affordability, limited supply, and growing economic uncertainty are all likely contributing factors. The sharp decline in foreign non-resident demand also raises questions about whether Spain’s increasingly hostile political rhetoric towards foreign property buyers is having an effect.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has repeatedly singled out foreign non-resident buyers as part of Spain’s housing problem, proposing punitive taxes and even floating the idea of restrictions on purchases. Whether or not such measures ever become law, some overseas buyers may already be getting the message that they are less welcome than they once were.
It’s still too early to draw firm conclusions from one quarter of data, but these figures are the first detailed buyer-segment numbers of 2026, and they suggest that foreign demand is cooling considerably faster than the domestic market.
For a country that has relied heavily on foreign buyers to support many coastal and island markets, that’s a trend worth watching closely.
Author: 
Mark Stücklin
Posted on
Thinking of selling your property in Spain, or just wondering what the market around your home looks like? I’m preparing a new free service to help owners get a clearer, data-led picture before making any big decisions.
I’d like to give readers a heads-up about a new service I’m preparing for owners of property in Spain: personalised market report presentations.
The idea is simple. If you own a property in Spain, especially if you are thinking of selling, I will prepare a short one-to-one market presentation showing what is going on around your property, in your location, and in your broad market segment.
That matters because you do not sell in “the Spanish property market”. You sell in a local market, in a particular segment, at a particular point in the cycle.
Before deciding how to sell, which agents to speak to, or what price expectations are realistic, it helps to understand the market you are entering.
The presentation will last around 20 minutes and talk you through the key numbers in plain English: wider market trends, local transaction data, active competition on the portals, and the broad segment your property belongs to.
It is not a valuation, legal review, tax consultation, or full sales strategy. It will not tell you what your property is worth. But it should give you something many owners lack at the start of the sales process: a proper framework for understanding the market before making decisions.
Even if you have no immediate plans to sell, the service may still be useful. Your Spanish property is likely to be one of your biggest assets. Understanding the market that underpins it is never a bad idea.
The service is not quite ready yet, but I hope to start offering the first free personalised market report presentations shortly.
Places will be limited at first. If you are interested, fill in the form below to join the waiting list and I’ll be in touch when ready.
For now, the service will be completely free as I test it.
Personalised Market Report
Enquiry form for a personalised market report presentation
Heads-up! Q1 2026 housing numbers just published by the notaries – Spanish home sales fall back from last year’s high
The latest Q1 figures from the Spanish notaries suggest the market has finally come off the boil after a powerful run in 2025. Sales are down across all the main regions tracked here, though still comfortably above the ten-year average in most places.
Spanish home sales reached 170,552 in Q1 2026, down 8% compared to the same quarter last year, according to the latest figures from the notaries. That sounds like a clear setback, and in annual terms it is. But context matters: Q1 2025 was the strongest first quarter in the series, so the comparison was always going to be demanding.
The national total is still 18% above the ten-year average, which suggests this is more of a cooling-off than a collapse, at least for now. In other words, the market has lost altitude, not fallen out of the sky.
All the main regions covered by SPI’s data show annual declines. The sharpest fall was in the Balearics, where sales dropped 15%, followed by the Canaries down 11%, and Andalusia and the Valencian Region both down 10%. Murcia fell 9%, Madrid 8%, and Catalonia 7%.
That broad-based decline is the main message from the new data. This is not a local wobble in one overheated market, but a general easing in demand after a strong run.
Still above normal in most regions
The secondary point is that lower does not necessarily mean weak. Compared to the ten-year average, sales remain 31% higher in Murcia, 19% higher in Catalonia, 17% higher in Andalusia, 15% higher in the Valencian Region, and 3% higher in Madrid.
The exceptions are the islands, where sales were 13% below the ten-year average in the Balearics and 4% below in the Canaries. That may point to affordability limits biting harder in the most expensive and supply-constrained island markets, though we need more data before drawing firm conclusions.
The national market therefore looks like it has entered a softer phase after last year’s peak, but not yet a downturn of the sort that should have sellers reaching for the smelling salts. The next question is whether this is just a pause after a boom, or the start of a more sustained cooling cycle.
SPI’s full reports and data pages will dig into the regional detail, prices, mortgages, and foreign demand as more figures come in.
Prices keep rising despite lower sales
Prices tell a different story to sales. The national average price reached €2,022/sqm in Q1 2026, up 7% compared to Q1 2025, and the highest Q1 figure in the series provided.
That leaves national prices 34% above the ten-year average, underlining the point that falling sales have not yet translated into falling prices. This is not unusual at this stage of the cycle: transaction volumes tend to react first, whilst prices often lag behind. In some cycles, sales fall for several quarters but prices never turn negative.
So the Q1 picture is mixed but clear enough: demand has cooled after last year’s surge, but sellers are still holding the line on prices — for now.
Get the full picture
Don’t stop here. SPI’s in-depth reports go beyond the headlines with hard data and analysis of key markets and housing trends in Spain. Visit the reports section to get the full picture.
Luxury Villas For Sale, Estepona – ProjectL1
SpaceX Se Estrena En Bolsa Con Una Subida Del 19% Y 2,1 Billones De Valoración
Estados Unidos E Irán Aseguran Que El Acuerdo Está “más Cerca Que Nunca” Pero Discrepan Sobre Su Contenido
-
%2 weeks agoFake Hacienda Text Targets Taxpayers
-
Uncategorized2 weeks agoMontoya vs Brundle BEEF, Newey
-
Africa1 week agoEurope Enters The ‘era Of Deportations’
-
Foreign demand2 weeks agoGerman Demand For Spanish Property Cools After A Strong Run
-
Alberto Fujimori5 days agoPeru’s Roberto Sánchez And Keiko Fujimori Urge Caution As Vote Count Continues In Very Tight Presidential Election
-
%2 weeks agoMajor Strike In Portugal To Cause Widespread Disruption To Air And Rail Travel
-
%2 weeks agoThe Rising Cost Of Finding Love
-
Uncategorized1 week agoMax Verstappen F1 future hangs in the balance as three teams block 2027 rule changes