The war between Russia and Ukraine will inevitably have an impact on the Spanish and Catalan economies, and thus also on the Spanish property market. The relationship between Catalonia and Russia has been consolidating for a decade due to the high interest of Russian homebuyers in the region, especially in Barcelona city and the Brava and Daurada coasts. For this reason, the Catalan property sector is paying particular attention to the development of the conflict in order to be able to anticipate the impact it may have on the market.
In this context, the Catalan Association of Property Agents (Asociación de Agentes Inmobiliarios de Catalunya, AIC), chaired by Vicenç Hernández Reche -also Tecnotramit’s CEO- has released figures on the weight of Russian buyers in the Catalan region until 2020, the latest official data available. The figures have been compiled with the collaboration of the Association of Registrars and their data offered exclusively to the College of Property Agents (Agentes de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria, API).
Thus, according to the report, home purchases by foreigners in Catalonia in 2020 accounted for 12% of total sales. The highest average price was paid by German (2,532 €/m2), Swiss (2,446 €/m2), Danish (2,428 €/m2), Swedish (2,402 €/m2) and Russian (2,125 €/m2) buyers. In other words, Russians were the fifth foreign nationality to pay the most for property assets in the autonomous community. All these prices exceeded the national average paid by foreigners as a whole (€1,764).
Until 2013, Russia was one of the most important countries in terms of home purchases in the Catalan market, but after the depreciation of the rouble, its position fell sharply. In 2020, Russia occupied the 7th position in the ranking of foreign buyers in Catalonia with 235 sales, a year-on-year decrease of 42.1%. Thus, Russians accounted for 3.0% of foreign home sales in the Catalan market and were 5 places above Ukraine, which accounted for 1.4% of all foreign purchases. By autonomous communities, Catalonia was the third with the highest number of home purchases by foreigners during 2020 with a total of 7,748 transactions, only surpassed by the Valencian Community (13,493) and Andalusia (9,443).
Foreign buyers continued to gain ground in Catalonia at the end of 2021
The percentage of homes purchased by foreigners in Catalonia has continued to grow for the third consecutive quarter after the low figures resulting from mobility restrictions due to the health crisis. 12.7% of homes were purchased by foreigners in the last quarter of 2021 compared to 11% who did so in the previous one.
Foreigners accounted for 11.1% of purchases in the last year. Girona leads provincial results with 22.3% of the total number of sales registered for the region being purchased by foreigners, followed by the provinces of Tarragona (11.4%), Lleida (9.6%), and Barcelona (8.7%).