We are fed up with listening continuously in the news and media, a lot of information as contradictory as: “after 2 years of increasing the property prices, now they are completely stuck”; and just one week after: the property prices has shot to its highest peak since the end of last year”… and so on, we could give a lot of examples on endless news and press articles, among which of them are more opposing, and they do not do anything but confuse consumers and general public.
This is the reason why, when our clients come to our office looking for help for setting up the right price for their homes, or maybe we have the chance of visiting them to assess the property, we see ourselves force to act as advisors using an extension service, which helps them to eliminate that confusing information; which in most cases are intentional, and they are spreading through different political lobbies and its friendly media.
In fact, it is proved that the need of transmitting good news is when we are immersed in a political campaign, as it is the case of Catalonia´s polls in the coming days. It makes that we are continuously listening this kind of euphoria messages that does not do anything but generate fake expectations in our clients; then they are frustrated as soon as they run over with the market reality. In the next canvas, it is shown this “political phenomenon” since the year 2015 until present.
So, without any intention of entering in politics -God forgive me for that- I would like to throw some light in this matter, the last “Informe sobre el precio de la vivienda” published by Noteges Consulting at the beginning of September and which is nowadays one of the most relevant reports at a national scale, even used for some of the Andalusian public organizations such as “Junta de Andalucia”.
It is important to highlight, that this report is based on sales data of more than 200 agencies associated to Club Noteges along the national territory. The methodology used for developing this report, it is based on the observation and analysis of 24.816 residential properties sold, for more than 3.307 billions of euros since April 2011. Both enough amount of properties and euros to have a good criteria. In fact, Club Noteges gather today one third of the total demand of houses in Spain.
In the previous canvas, we can see the price evolution from April 2011 to 30th of August 2017, we can notice that there is an existing “gap” between the house prices which are being put on sale and those which were really sold. This gap was set up in 53.036 € of difference, between 180.221 € which was the average first price of 11.122 € for sale and 127.185 €, which was the average price of sale, representing this figure a difference of -29% as a national average.
If we focus in the Andalusia figure, which is the region where Club Noteges has the most presence with almost 80 offices, which sold 1.385 houses in the second Quarter 2017. We see how it represents 36.2% of the national total, with an average price of 110.201 € per house and 1.097 €/m2.
According to these objective sales data, it is shown clearly how after three years of flat growth, it is realised a slight increase in prices of 4.31% in the current year. However, the existing gap between the unit prices that home owners set and the one in which their houses were sold at the end, in Andalusia it has been of -32% (51.945 €).
As a conclusion, we can confirm that effectively the house Price have been increasing steadily such as it has been shown in the second canvas of this report, since the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2014, which means, that this is not something new. In the current year we can realise a continues trend, and apart from the non-specialized media shots, everything seems to sign to a consolidation process of this trend along next year.
Thus, to the question: Are the house prices increasing? We must answer: Yes, in Spain generally, the prices are growing. This is true. But… not everywhere, at least not in the same way. So it is necessary to get information from a very contrasted and specialized source, before taking such an important decision about how to set a price of the house.
