The annual TINSA report on the state of the Spanish housing market has warned that major cities are seeing an upswing in new build sales, and that unless construction increases 2018 could see the market stall for lack of new homes.
But Almeria continues to be the province with the greatest number of unsold homes. Of all homes built in the last seven years, 39 per cent or 13,389 new builds remain unsold.
TINSA warns that the average price of a new build in Almeria is likely to fall at least another six percent before the market price hits bottom.
According to the report by the company, which assesses valuations for mortgage lenders, there are currently 389,000 unsold new build homes across Spain, or 25 per cent of those built since the start of the recession in 2008.
During the recession Spain built 1,56 million homes, increasing the number of homes nationally by 6,4 per cent.
The report clearly divides Spanish cities into two sectors, those such as Almeria, Murcia, or Cuenca where thousands of new builds remain unsold, and thriving markets such as Madrid, Barcelona or the Costa del Sol where the real estate market is consuming the backlog of unsold new build homes.
TINSA said in a statement that “along the coast there is a large concentration of stock, at least 38 per cent of the total, and we continue to see more remote regions with a large percentage of their total housing stock being unsold new builds”.
Real estate web portal idealista.es offered an analysis of the second hand home market across the nation, saying 2,7 per cent of all homes in Spain are currently up for sale. Almeria is the region with the highest percentage of properties per sale in Spain, with 4,3 per cent, or 16,819 homes, currently for sale.
This suggests that as of November 2015 there were 30,208 homes for sale in Almeria. As there are 397,507 homes in Almeria that means 1 in every thirteen is for sale.
National statistics agency INE say that house sales in the province rose by 102 in the first two quarters of this year, with exactly 3,700 sales being recorded. The average home price in the second quarter of this year was 91,408 euros, a slight drop over last years average of 94,568 euros.