Spanish home prices rose in the second quarter for the first time since 2008, adding to signs that the property market is stabilizing more than six years after triggering the worst recession in the country’s democratic history.
Prices rose 0.8 percent from a year earlier, the first annual gain since the first quarter of 2008, according to data compiled by the National Statistics Institute. Values climbed 1.7 percent from the previous quarter, the Madrid-based Statistics Institute said.
“It’s still too early to say that prices have bottomed or that there is a change in tendency,” said Fernando Encinar, co-founder of Idealista.com, Spain’s largest property website. “We have to take into account the low number of transactions and the fact that deals now are probably more focused on the high end of the market.”
Two years since applying for a European Union rescue, Spain has become one of the fastest-growing euro-area economies as exports surged and investment rebounded. The Bank of Spain projects growth of 1.3 percent in 2014 and 2 percent next year.
Spain’s General Council of Registrars said earlier this month that home prices rose about 1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier. The organization estimates that prices have fallen 32 percent from the peak and are now at levels last seen in 2003.
Prices rose year-on-year in all but one of the nation’s 18 regions, with the highest growth in Murcia and Valencia, according to the National Statistics Institute.
Source: Bloomberg