The sale of homes fell by 10.2% year-on-year last December, to a total of 43,370 operations, thus breaking a series of 21 consecutive months of increase, since the end of the pandemic, according to data published today by the National Institute of Statistics. (INE).
Despite the sharp turn in December, the month in which sales fell by 21.3% compared to November, home sales closed 2022 at record levels: with 649,494 homes sold, 14.7% more than those of 2021, the year marked the best record in the market since 2007, when 775,300 transactions were reached.
The market's vitality has been entirely due to the strength of second-hand home sales, which reached 532,459 homes last year (17.7% more) and already exceeded real estate bubble levels, years in which the sale of new homes concentrated a large part of the operations, while now with 117,035 homes sold (2.6% more) they account for barely 18% of the market.
The INE highlights the slowdown in the market in December, a month traditionally less active than November but which has been especially weak this year. In the month, the sale of new homes fell by 18.8% compared to December 2021, with 7,753 operations, and that of used homes by 8.1%, with 35,617.
Asturias was the only community in which home sales increased in December, by 5.1%. The smallest decreases occurred in Navarra (–0.2%) and Murcia (–0.5%). In turn, La Rioja (–19.5%), Madrid (–16.9%) and Andalucía (–14.1%) registered the greatest decreases.
For the year as a whole, the situation is reversed, and only one community, Navarra, closed 2022 with a decrease in home sales, and barely 0.5%. The communities that presented the greatest annual increases in the number of home sales were Canarias (31.6%), Illes Balears (25.6%) and Comunitat Valenciana (23.9%).
