Spanish property market continues to pick up

A fresh residential property market report shows that Spanish property prices edged higher in March.

The latest Spanish Property Insight House Price Index Tracker plots the progress of the six most-watched house price indices in Spain, and puts them all on one graph.

It used to be seven indices, but Mark Stucklin, who compiles the index on behalf of Spanish Property Insight, recently decided to drop the Fotocasa property portal asking price index, as another asking price index published by the Idealist property portal is already featured.  

Analysis of the latest Spanish property price data shows that home prices in the country rose for the second consecutive month in March (+2.5%), which is close to the figure published by the appraisal company Tinsa (+2.7%), based on their own valuations.

The resale asking price index published by the property portal Idealista for April was -1.3%, up from a low of -5.6% in January.

“I don’t think much of the house price indices published in Spain, but they might influence expectations, so it’s worth keeping an eye on them,” said Stucklin.

He added: “The Tinsa index, which I find the most credible, breaks down house price changes by area. It showed the national average price rising by 2.7% in March, by 5.5% in cities, 1.9% on the coast, and a hefty 7% in the Balearic and Canary islands.”