Home prices almost back to pre-recession levels

Whilst 2007 saw home values shoot up by 9.8%, they dropped dramatically from 2008 – by 1.5%, then with a huge dip by 6.7% in 2009 and finally reaching a floor in 2012 after dropping 13.7%.

Since then, they have gradually climbed and, by the end of 2017, had risen by 6.7%, over halfway back up between 2008 and 2007 values.

The Home Price Index (índice de Precios de Vivienda, or IPV), part of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) says the greatest rises in residential property values have been seen in the Greater Madrid region where, along with the city of Barcelona, the region of the Balearic Islands and the Spanish-owned enclave of Ceuta on the northern Moroccan coast, they are well above average in terms of value increase.

The national average increase since 2008 is 112.4% over 10 full years, rising to 123.9% in Madrid, 119.1% in Catalunya, 118% in the Balearics and 112.9% in Ceuta.

Nowhere has the property price rise been lower than 100% - at the bottom is the central region of Castilla-La Mancha at 101.6%, followed by the land-locked western region of Extremadura at 102.3% - and several are only slightly below the national average: Ceuta's extra-continental neighbour Melilla, near the Algerian border (110.6%); the Basque Country (109.7%); the Canary Islands (107.9%); Cantabria, on the northern coast (107.7%), and Andalucía (106.9%).

As well as Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, however, bargain homes can still be found in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, which has seen a rise of 102.4% over the last decade; Asturias (103.1%); Murcia, in the south-east and La Rioja in the far north (both 103.7%); Galicia in the far north-west (104.3%), and Navarra, inland near the Pyrénées (104.5%).

Somewhere in the middle are the Comunidad Valenciana along the east coast (105.7%) and Aragón, which stretches inland from the Pyrénées to about a third of the way down the mainland (105.1%).

Although it is not expected prices will ever again reach the historic highs of 2007, when the property bubble was at its most inflated and on the brink of bursting spectacularly, continued interest in buying and selling second-hand homes – especially among foreigners seeking holiday accommodation or moving to Spain – show that the housing crisis has almost fully over.