Home sales decreased by 7.1% in February 2023 compared to the previous year and registered a total of 48,212 registrations, according to provisional data from the Real Estate Registry Statistics published this Monday by the College of Registrars and collected by Press.
However, four autonomous communities and the autonomous city of Ceuta registered an increase in home sales in February 2023 compared to the same month in 2022. Specifically, Asturias, with growth of 19.9% year-on-year, up to 1,020 registrations; in the Valencian Community the increase was 1.5%, up to 7,913; in Navarra 0.9%, up to 533; in Murcia of 0.7%, up to 1,824. And finally, in Ceuta, growth was 15.4%, up to a total of 45 operations.
On the contrary, at the other extreme, the greatest year-on-year decreases in home sales were found in Melilla (-40.7%), La Rioja (-23.6%); the Community of Madrid (-16%), Extremadura (-15.9%) and the Balearic Islands (13.6%). In the same way, the total mortgages for these five communities also decreased.
Third consecutive month that sales fall
Total purchases and sales fell for the third consecutive month, 9.3%, continuing the negative trend that began in December last year (-13.3%), after continuous growth since March 2020. Of the 105,450 made in February 2022, more than to 95,622 in February of this year, about 10,000 less operations according to registrars.
By province, February, the annual evolution of total sales, compared to the same month of the previous year, shows general decreases, especially in the Autonomous City of Melilla (-35.7%), Madrid (-19.6%) ), the Balearic Islands (-17.6%), Galicia (-16.2%), Extremadura (-16.1%), La Rioja (-15.6%), the Basque Country (-11.9%) and Castilla and León (-11.7%). Only in Ceuta (15.5%) and Asturias (7.3%) have there been increases.
Mortgages also tend to fall
For their part, the registrars point out that the evolution of mortgages in recent months shows a negative trend, similar to what happened in purchases and sales, with decreases in December, although with a slight recovery in January.
In February, the behavior of constituted mortgages showed a less pronounced drop than sales. The total number of mortgages, 45,437 operations have been constituted compared to the 47,819 of the same month of the previous year, which represents a decrease of 5%, with a difference of around 2,400 operations. Regarding housing mortgages, 34,332 operations were constituted compared to 35,227 in the same month of the previous year, a moderate decrease of 2.5% with around 900 fewer.
In relation to the total mortgages constituted compared to February of the previous year, they fell more in La Rioja (-33.8%), Melilla (-23.2%), Extremadura (-22.9%), Galicia (-18, 0%) and Madrid (-16.4%), while they increased more in Murcia (12.4%), Asturias (7.2%) and Catalonia (6.8%).
