Spanish Mortgage Approvals soared by 34% in April 2018

Year-on-year, according to the Spanish Statistical Office, the number of mortgage approvals soared by 34% this April, with the average mortgage value rising by 9.1% to 123,256 euros. The capital loaned by Spanish lenders amounted to 3.54 billion euros, a 46.5% increase on the same month a year earlier.

With 6,018 mortgage approvals Madrid was the busiest market, followed by Andalusia with 5,154 and Catalunya with 4,700 mortgages approved.

Asking prices rose by 5.5% on average in the Balerics in the first quarter of this year and by 5.1% for listings in Madrid. In Andalusia sellers were more modest in their listing prices: here the average home value rose by 2.2%.

Barcelona remained the most expensive capital in Spain with an average price per square metre of 4,334 euros, while in Madrid the square metre cost on average 3,540 euros. Ávila was the cheapest of Spain's capitals with a price of 934 euros per square metre.

Luxury market specialists Lucas Fox reported a buoyant market, with the average price per property amounting to 924,000 euros in Q1 and an increase of 18% in home values. The majority of the estate agent's clients came from abroad (77%), with Britain leading the international buyers, followed by France, Scandinavia, the USA and the Middle East. Of the total number of buyers around one third bought their property as their main residence, an annual increase of just over 7%.

Total house sales according to data collected by the National Statistics Office for the first quarter amounted to 134,705 property deals, an increase of 7.97% compared to the same quarter in 2017.