Average House Price Sees Highest Post-Pandemic Rise; 6.7% in Q1 2023

At Gesvalt, we have published our latest Housing Report for the first quarter of 2023. The study, carried out by our Research Department with our own data, reflects an increase in house prices of 6.7% compared to the same period in 2022.

This is the biggest rise in the average house price since the pandemic, marking a new milestone after seven consecutive quarters with increases above 3% at the national level. Our experts point out that this may have occurred due to the opposite effect from interest rate rises, which in some cases have speeded up the decision to buy in view of the possibility of future increases. Even so, we consider that the house price is likely to stabilise during the central months of 2023, and prices could even fall in certain areas.

In this way, the average house price stands at €1,536 per sq. m, which is still close to the historical peak recorded in Q1 2008, although still 28.3% below. This means that a home with an average value and 90 sq. m floor area of 90 m², which would have been worth €129,510 last year, would be worth €138,240 today.

For the first time since the end of the pandemic, house prices rose in all Spanish regions with no exception. All 17 autonomous communities have seen house prices rise, although at uneven rates. The only region where the increase was less than 1% was Castile and León, the third region with the lowest price (€1,010 per sq. m), just above Castile-La Mancha (€886 per sq. m) and Extremadura (€855 per sq. m). On the opposite side of the ranking are the Balearic Islands, which again, for the sixth quarter in a row, marks the highest house price in Spain, with €2,620 per sq. m, closely followed by the Community of Madrid (€2,453 per sq. m), and the Basque Country (€2,366 per sq. m), these being the only regions with an average house price exceeding €2,000 per sq. m.

Murcia, with two-digit rises, leads the growth ahead of Navarre and the Balearic Islands

The first quarter of the year has once again highlighted the different speeds of house price growth in Spain. On the one hand, the Murcia Region has recorded the only two-digit increase in recent years, with 10.3%, ranking first in terms of increase and followed by Navarre (7.8%) and the Balearic Islands (7.4%). In the latter case, the autonomous community is once again among the regions with the highest increases, after ranking first for five consecutive quarters. These are closely followed by the Valencia Region (6.6%), the Community of Madrid (5.3%), Andalusia (5.1%) and the Canary Islands (5%), making a total of seven regions above 5%.

At the provincial level, price rises in Malaga (+11.5%), Murcia (+10.3%) and Alicante (+9.0%) should be highlighted, while provinces with the highest declines were Zamora (-6.3%), Burgos (-2.4%), Jaén (-1.3%) and León (-1.2%).