Home sales continue to decline (2.1% less year-on-year in January), but mortgages have fallen five times more in the same period: 10.3%, according to the INE.
Fewer and fewer home sales are made with a mortgage and those that are in cash are increasing. A trend present since mid-2022 after the increases in eurozone interest rates.
On the one hand, there is a constant – and growing – wave of foreign investors who are mainly looking for apartments to invest in and who can pay "in cash", at any rate. On the other hand, loans at 0% interest among first-degree relatives for the purchase of a home are also proliferating.
Banking entities have been quick to pass on interest rate increases to their mortgages, but traditional banks are still reluctant to remunerate their clients for their savings. This encourages parents to lend that unpaid money to their children to purchase a home.
0% loans between family members can be signed before a notary in a legal and transparent manner, without having to pay additional taxes. If this is not done, the Treasury would consider it a donation, which is currently taxed at 5% for this type of relationship.
A 0% loan is a legal and common option to help pay for the down payment of a mortgage or a subsequent renovation. Even so, these financial resources are not risk-free and must be left well tied up to avoid later problems.
The cooling of the economy has given a respite to active buyers. The sense of urgency that was once felt when buying an apartment—an urgency in the face of the possibility that another buyer would beat you to it—has been declining this last year.
Although she remains alive. A large part of the reason is the foreign buyer who is constantly searching for assets to invest in and who very often passes ahead of local buyers if they do not have the money to pay outright.
The College of Registrars estimates the purchase of housing by foreigners in Spain at 14.98% of the total and attributes "excellent performance during the year 2023, accumulating two consecutive years with intense income."
It is difficult to quantify what number of foreign buyers buy to live and how much as an investment, although it is evident that "the autonomous communities with the highest purchase weights by foreigners coincide again with those with great tourist activity." This "current strength of foreign demand", always in the words of the Registrars, has been higher in the Balearic Islands (31.50%) and in the Valencian Community (29.26%), which easily double that of Catalonia (15. 79%).
Among the most common nationalities of foreign buyers, there are Chinese in Barcelona, Italian in Girona and Tarragona and Romanian in Lleida and Castelló. Germans predominate in the Balearic Islands and Moroccans in Alacant.
