📣 Sales Fall After Last Year’s Surge

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.

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