Spanish Property Market: November 2020 News

The editorial staff of VirtoProperty continues to follow and report on key events on the Spanish housing market. In November 2020, most of the information is related to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. If you are interested in how the housing sector is living through the epidemic and what is happening in the market now, then read this news report.

In Spain, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the time required to sell housing has increased. According to Idealista, the average time to sell property in Spain has grown to six months instead of five. The most time to sell a real estate takes in the provinces of Teruel, Palencia and Zamora (more than a year).

At the other end of the rating are Granada (3.5 months), Madrid (3.8), Barcelona (4.5) and Zaragoza (4.5). As you can see, in major cities and resort coasts housing sells faster. And the above mentioned Granada, along with Llerida and Ciudad Real, was included in the list of provinces that managed to reduce the sale period.

We sell property remotely without travelling to Spain

In a 40 minutes drive from Madrid there will be the largest artificial beach in Europe – Alovera Beach. In November, the provincial authorities of Guadalajara approved this project. The first thing to be built here (distance to the sea is about 300 km) is an artificial reservoir of 25 thousand sq m, the expected area of the beach is 15 thousand sq m.

Alovera Beach will be divided into five zones: beach, sports and entertainment area, area for children, sailing and restaurants. The cost of the project is around 15 billion euros. Date of completion is not yet announced.

According to a survey by Via Celere, 42% of Spaniards are thinking about moving in the next five years. Of these, 54% are looking to improve living conditions, and 22% want to change the city or district. 19% of those who want to move said the main reason for it is the coronavirus pandemic. Another 5% admitted that they plan to make money on the selling or letting their current housing.

77% of respondents said that they consider moving in new buildings. The main factors are energy efficiency of new properties, high quality of materials and modern planning.


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Since the beginning of the pandemic in Spain, the share of houses sold has increased. We are talking about both large (villas) and small (chalets) houses for a single family. Idealista writes about this with reference to the Spanish Property Registry. Thus, according to statistics, in the third quarter of 2020, villas/chalets accounted for 20.4% of all real estate sales in the country. Specialists associate it with the pandemic, during which people tend to seek solitude.

It is worth noting that 20.4% is a record. In 2012, the share of Spanish homes accounted for about 15% of sales, and the highest figure was previously recorded in 2019 (19.1%). The current leaders in villa sales are Castilla-La Mancha, Estremadura, Castilla-Leon, Valencia and Andalusia.

More and more Spaniards prefer to rent a room instead of an apartment because of the fall in income during the pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of "room for rent" announcements in Spain has increased by almost 80%! The Balearic Islands have become one of the most problematic regions of the country: the archipelago is considered an expensive area in terms of accommodation and rent, and during the epidemic there have been many job cuts.

As explains Antoni Gaya, the president of the Association of Real Estate Services of the Balearic Islands, the majority of local residents now simply cannot afford to rent an apartment. At the moment the price of a monthly rent of an apartment on the islands starts from €800, while a room costs around €300.

The hospitality sector in Spain continues to face challenges due to the global pandemic. Now there are over 550 hotels for sale at the same time. Most of them are located in Catalonia (114) and Andalusia (101).

As we mentioned in the previous digest, some Spanish hotels offer new services during the pandemic not to lose customers. For example, they offer rooms to locals for remote work. The price varies from €12 to €110, depending on the policy of the hotel.

In 2020, Spain welcomed 74.9% fewer tourists than the year before. This information is provided by the National Statistics Institute of Spain (INE). For example, in September 1.1 million people came to Spain (87.1% less than in September 2019). Among foreigners, the main visitors to Spain are the French, British and Germans.

Last year Spain took second place in the world by the number of tourists after France. Now the country has strict measures to combat COVID-19: most employees have been transferred to the "remote" work, air traffic with many countries is still closed, and the curfew (from 23:00 to 6:00) was extended until May 9, 2021.