Housing prices will rise by more than 4% in 2022

The price of housing will end this year with a rebound of 2% and will rise more than 4% in 2022, confirming the return to normality of the sector after the pandemic and the strength of the Spanish real estate market.

These are the forecasts of the Pisos.com portal published today, whose Director of Studies, Ferran Font, assures that "housing has been one of the bastions of resistance against other sectors that will still take time to return to the levels prior to the arrival of Covid-19".

The expert points out that, "once the movement limits were removed, interest in allocating savings to real estate has risen, but these peaks should not be interpreted as an approach to a bubble, but rather as the logical response to the demand retained during the pandemic". According to Font, "it is a good time to buy because there is a high liquidity while interest rates are very low. In addition, many want to get ahead of the curve to avoid losing purchasing power due to inflation and to save the increase in price and the delays that the lack of materials will generate."

While housing prices were adjusted during 2020, estimates change for the end of 2021, for which an upward closing is expected to range between 2% and 3% in second-hand homes.

For next year, pisos.com forecasts an increase of 4-5% in the price of housing, also motivated by the shortage of materials and raw materials, which reduce supply and, above all, the construction of new housing. However, Font insists that "no abrupt overvaluation scenarios are expected as both supply and demand are stabilizing".

The latest estimates of the Bank of Spain - contained in its Financial Stability Report - indicate that real estate prices will rise by 5.4% in 2021-2023, although it also warned that, in an adverse scenario, prices could fall by up to 17%.

The forecasts of Pisos.com portal is that 2021 will end with some 550,000 homes sold, 31% more than the previous year, while by 2022 transactions will increase by 3% compared to the end of 2021.

In the case of mortgages, a similar trend can be observed, with an accumulated year-on-year increase of 19%, as pisos.com states. Font estimates that this year the amount of mortgages will grow by 20% (more than 400,000), "provided that in the final stretch of the year a little more than 30,000 new mortgages are added each month".

The performance in 2022 will depend on the decisions of the European Central Bank on the withdrawal of stimuli, which could boost fixed-rate mortgages, according to Font.