Record Numbers Of Spanish Home Purchases By Foreigners, As New Nationalities Come To The Fore - BM SOTOGRANDE

[Liz Seyi]

It’s not exactly news, of course, that Spanish residential properties are a big hit among people from other countries, and that has certainly long been the case for property in Sotogrande. However, it has also been fascinating lately to see evolving trends in the buying patterns among foreigners who do acquire property in Spain.
As reported by The Local, foreign buyers of Spanish homes have tended in the past to be from one of four nationalities: Britons, Germans, the French, and Americans.
In 2022, however, there have been signs of increasing interest and demand from countries that haven’t traditionally been so strongly associated with the Spanish property market, including Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway.
What does the latest data indicate about demand for Spanish homes from elsewhere?
The digital news outlet cited figures from Spain’s General Council of Notaries (Consejo General de Notariado) as revealing that some 72,987 homes in the country had been purchased by foreigners in the first six months of 2022. This is the highest figure since records began in 2007.
This meant that Spanish home purchases by non-Spanish nationals accounted for a fifth – 20.3% – of the total amount of transactions across the country, level with the record high seen for the second half of 2015.
The nationalities strongly represented among those buying properties in Spain included what The Local described as “the usual suspects” – namely the British, Germans and French. However, it was also clear from the figures that other countries have become more prominent in recent times as sources of Spanish property purchasers.
In fact, the statistics show that nationals of the Netherlands, Norway and Ireland purchased more than double the number of Spanish properties in the first half of 2022 compared to the corresponding period the previous year.
Although purchases by all nationalities saw a 52.75% increase on average, for the Dutch, Norwegians and Irish, these rises were 121.5%, 119.5%, and 106.7% respectively.
It all means that buyers from the Netherlands, for example, are now the seventh most strongly represented group among foreign buyers of Spanish property, having purchased 3,641 homes in the first half of 2022. Meanwhile, the 1,395 property transactions that Ireland accounted for is the second highest number for Irish buyers since 2007.
Norway provided a further 979 Spanish home sales for the first six months of 2022, which is the highest figure recorded for Norwegian purchasers in four years.
Why not join the foreign influx as major demand persists for Spanish property?
Hopefully, the above information will have been inspiring to you if you are a non-Spanish national who would like to buy property in Sotogrande.
In an age of more widespread remote working, as well as ‘energy nomadism’ – describing the practice of many people choosing to spend time in warmer parts of Europe during the winter in order to keep energy bills low – there might have never been a better time to make your dream of Spanish property ownership a reality.
The team at BM Sotogrande can help make that possible – so why wait any longer to enquire to us today to start taking those crucial first steps?