Residential property sales up 16% in August

That month, 82.1% of the total of 41,282 residential properties which changed owners were second-hand, with the rest being new builds.

Over the course of 2017, from January to August inclusive, property buying and selling rose by 14%, largely helped by bumper sales in the last of these eight months which saw a hike of 6% on July.

August 2017's year-on-year rise was not quite as buoyant as that of July – where the difference in sales compared with the same month in 2016 was 16.8% - but was still the third-best result since February 2011, with more homes shifted than ever and only beaten in number by May and June 2011 when each month saw over 44,000 properties shift hands.

Second-hand home sales in August represented a rise of 14.9% year-on-year, whilst new-build sales increased by 21.3%, totalling 7,396.

The highest number of homes purchased was seen in the Valencia region, with 163 bought per 100,000 inhabitants, and followed closely by the Balearic Islands' 152 and Andalucía's 125.

A total of 8,224 were bought in Andalucía in August, the highest total per region, followed by Catalunya's 6,720 and Valencia's 6,370.

The fewest numbers of sales were seen in La Rioja, where only 262 properties were bought, followed by Navarra's 477 and Cantabria's 507.

Every region registered a year-on-year rise in August – the highest being in Castilla-La Mancha, at 37.9%, above Valencia at 32.5% and Galicia at 23%, whilst the lowest increases were seen in Navarra, at 1.9% and the Basque Country, at 4%.