The purchase of homes by foreigners has grown strongly in the Canary Islands in this year 2022, reaching record figures never seen before. In the first half of this year, foreigners, both residents and non-residents, acquired a total of 6,456 homes in the archipelago, which represents almost 50% of the total transactions completed in the period (13,291), according to the data from the General Council of Notaries and the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
This figure exceeds the record from the first half of 2017 when 5,941 sales went through, and is above the first half of 2019 when there were 4,249. In 2020 and 2021, the two years affected by Covid, property sales dropped to 2,463 and 3,423 respectively.
In the last year, the increase is 88.6% in the Canary Islands, which makes it the region with the greatest increase in the whole of Spain, ahead of Valencia (78%) and Andalusia (62.3%). The national average stood at 52.7%, according to statistics from the General Council of Notaries.
At national level, foreigners acquired nearly 73,000 properties in the first semester, a figure that is also historical.
Non-resident foreigners bought more than residents:
The stats also show that the rebound was higher among non-residents than among foreigners residing in the country, a trend that also occurs in the Canary Islands. At national level, residents acquired 54% of homes, after growing 25.3% year-on-year; whereas non-residents made up 45.7%, after increasing by 106%.
The price of properties returns to the level of 2008:
The price per square metre for these transactions has returned to the level of the first half of 2008, which is 2,159 euros. It has taken 14 years for prices to get back to that level after the decline in the ‘Great Recession’, according to data from the General College of Notaries.
Nationally, the average price per square metre of transactions involving foreign buyers in the first half of 2022, stood at 2,062 euros per square metre, which is 10.6% more than in the first half of 2021.
Non-resident foreigners continue to pay higher amounts for their properties (2,522 euros per square metre) than resident foreigners (1,622 euros per square metre), and nationals (1,560 euros per square metre), due to the locations they buy in.
The Germans overtake the British as the biggest property buyers:
The Germans overtook the British in the first half of this year and became the foreigners who accounted for the largest share of home purchases in the archipelago, due to the impact of Brexit and people’s uncertainty and caution.
If we take into account non-resident foreigners on the islands, the Germans accounted for 25% of the purchases while the British represented 12%. In the case of foreigners residing in the Canary Islands, the group that purchased the most homes were Italians (25%); and the second largest group were the Germans (14%), according to data from the General Council of Notaries.
However, at national level, the British bought the most homes, taking 10.7% of the total operations, followed by the Germans (10.2%) and the French (7.7%). Sales picked up for all nationalities, although the Dutch (121.5%), Norwegians (119.5%) and Irish (106.7%) did so more intensely.
