Spanish property portals are showing an unprecedented increase of traffic, a good sign for the property market.
Unusual activity of Spanish property portals brings an interesting question. Is it possible to predict with certainty the property market movements in the coming months.?
The latest data from the Internet shows that it isn’t. In the unexpected turn of the events, especially for today´s market, Fotocasa and Idealista, two of Spain’s largest property portals, saw record user activity in the past three months. Fotocasa communications director Anais Lopez highlighted a 40% year-on-year jump in traffic in June. “All the real estate agencies we work with say they’re seeing unprecedented interest in changing homes, getting an enormous amount of calls and organising visits,” Lopez said, adding that Fotocasa’s page visits and contact rates were well above pre-pandemic summer averages.
It brings the hope that the property market can very soon come back to where it was before the crisis.Idealista spokesman Benat del Coso said online mortgage brokerage requests over the summer were 20% higher than normal. Idealista has noted prices tailing off, dropping 0.1% in Madrid and 1.1% in Barcelona in August.
Spain’s real-estate sector is hoping for a recovery, but the economy has been retreating further since June despite the easing of coronavirus-prevention measures, unlike in European countries like Britain where house prices are surging.
Nationwide, house sales plunged 43% to 75,00 in the second quarter, the Bank of Spain said last week, with transactions in traditionally red-hot markets like Madrid and Barcelona falling 20.2% and 17.3% respectively. With financing hard to come by and mortgage indebtedness rising as cash-strapped homeowners seek liquidity, it looks like Spaniards are reluctant to sell property at “pandemic prices”, while prospective buyers struggle to meet tougher lending requirements.
