More than 30% ends in the hands of non -residents

Spain awakens the appetite of foreigners who want to buy/invest in housing. Or at least like that, it was in 2024, one year still marked by The effect of the Golden Visa. The data of the College of Registrars shows that about 15% From all transactions they were starred in foreign citizens. And not just that. Its weight was especially palpable in tourist areas, such as the Balearic Islands, Valencian Community or the Canary Islands, where they came to be around 30%.

In certain points especially tensioning the demand was also intense by foreigners who do not even reside in Spain. As an example, in the first quarter of 2025 They monopolized 32% of Alicante transactions.

A figure: 93,000. In the Spanish real estate market, foreign accents sound strongly. This was at least last year if we take into account the data collected by the College of Registered in His last yearbookin which the number of housing purchases formalized by foreign citizens is included in almost 93,000. In percentage terms, that equals 14.6% of all operations.

The figure is interesting for two reasons. The first, because that 14.6% is very close to the maximum of the historical series of the College of Registrars, reached the previous year and that stood in 14.98%. The second reason is its volume. Perhaps the percentage is not as high as that of 2023, but in absolute terms the total operations was much higher: that year they were counted about 87,400while in 2024 the foreign demand gave rise to 93,000 purchases.

With the map in hand. That 14.6% represents the “footprint” of foreigners in the total housing purchases registered last year. That is, it shows a global fact, at the national level. The thing changes when get down to detail and we analyze the different regions or provinces. There are points such as Extremadura, Galicia, Castilla y León or Cantabria, in which the operations starring foreigners do not mean 4% of the total. In others that percentage is triggered clearly.

The most obvious case is that of the Balearic Islands. There almost a third of all housing purchases (32.6%) were signed by foreign citizens. It is followed by the Valencian Community (28.9%), the Canary Islands (27.2%), the Region of Murcia (23.6%), Catalonia (16.3%) and Andalusia (13.9%). The Balearic Islands are not just those that show a higher percentage. As if that did not make them stand out in itself, it is also the region that shows a greater interannual increase, of 1.1%.

Can you go further? Yes. Thanks to The statistics of the Ministry of Transport, which allow answering a crucial question: how many of those foreigners who met houses in Spain last year really reside here? Throughout 2024 the administration registered 715,678 transactions, according to ministerial data. By classifying the type of buyer, 56,777 are attributed to foreigners “not resident in Spain.” That is, 8%.

Above 20%. This percentage is however superior if we analyze in detail the data of provinces or territories especially crowded by tourists from other countries. In Alicante for example, foreign buyers not residing in Spain represented 35.3% of transactions, in Malaga, 27.8%, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife 21.9% and in the Balearic Islands reached 25.4%.

The photo updated. A few weeks ago economist Marta Suárez-Varela published A graph In X with data from the first quarter that show that 2025 has started with a very similar ‘photography’. In the case of Alicante, the percentage of non -resident foreign buyers on the total transactions stood at 32.6%, in Malaga it was 28.8%, of 23.7% in Sta. Cruz de Tenerife and 21.3% in the Balearic Islands. The data also start from government records.

The graph It is revealing because it finds that purchases by non -resident foreigners are particularly relevant in markets with strong tourist pressure. In addition to those mentioned, Las Palmas, Murcia, Girona, Almería, Castellón, Valencia, Huelva, Tarragona, Granada, Cádiz and Barcelona are listed on Top 15. Government statistics also suggest that the purchases of foreigners in these areas have been high for years. In fact, their percentages were higher in 2015. In the opposite pole are Álava, Albacete, Palencia, Ávila or Valladolid.

But what do they buy? The data of the College of Registrars give some more brushstrokes. For example, it shows that 7.5% of mortgages About housing counted by the agency last year, foreigners were signed, 13.1% more than in 2023. Its footprint stands out in the Balearic Islands, Valencian Community, Catalonia and Murcia, although registrars do not distinguish between residents or non -residents.

The average amount of their credits was 171,200 euros and Those who bought the most They were the British, followed by Germans, Moroccans, French, Dutch, Romanians and Italians. If we talk about second -hand houses, the Bulgarians, Gauls and Moroccans stand out. If we do it from a new construction, the Belgians, Poles and Dutch.

Click on the image to go to Tweet.

What … and when. The Yearbook of the Registrars slides a fact that might seem irrelevant, but it is crucial to better understand what happened in 2024 in the Spanish real estate market. 10.8% of housing purchases starring foreigners reached or even exceeded 500,000 euros, the “maximum of the historical series”, Clarify The agency before remembering that in 2023 that same percentage of 9.7%. Not just that. 52.6% of those most value purchases were made by foreigners with non -community nationalities. The data far exceeds that of a couple of years ago (2022), when it marked 42.3%.

Two words: Golden Visa. That in 2024 the acquisitions of housing of more than half a million euros by people from outside the EU are no accident. In 2024 the Government announced his intention to end the Golden Visa, Residence permits available to those foreigners who made certain investments, including purchases of real estate of more than 500,000 euros.

The measure It was approved in 2013in full recession, in an attempt to inject foreign capital into a real estate sector in low hours, but now, with upward prices, the government decided to withdraw it, something that became effective Last April.

“The elimination of Golden Visa Real estate serves to give opportunities to those who today have problems accessing a home in specific places and with price tension and lack of residential supply, ” He claimed Last year the Minister of the Branch, Isabel Rodríguez. The impact of Golden Visa In the market it was relatively limitedwith the concession of only a few hundred permits per year, but the announcement of their suspension did not go unnoticed in the sector.

“A slight increase”. “We have noticed a slight increase in the interest of international buyers for properties of 500,000 euros in recent months. While this increase has not been very representative, it does reflect a market reaction to take advantage of the framework of the framework of the Golden Visa“, explained In April a The country the person responsible for a real estate intermediation society.

Transaction data of the first quarter of 2025 show that, at least during The start Of the year, the weight of the purchases of non -resident foreigners was still considerable, especially in the islands and points of the Mediterranean coast.

Image | Maksim Ivanov (UNSPLASH)

In Xataka | Benidorm has encountered something worse than mass tourism: 340 million euros that threaten to take it to bankruptcy