Housing continued to rise in 2019, but the main Spanish cities experienced a market slowdown. The biggest slowdowns were observed in Barcelona and Zaragoza. In the Catalan capital, the average price per square meter ended the year at 3,362.8 euros, only 0.7% more than in the fourth quarter of the previous year. This small margin of growth contrasts with those of previous years, when the appraised value of housing, according to statistics from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (formerly Development), increased at double-digit rates. In Zaragoza, the price of housing went from rising 13.4% in 2018 to a meager 0.6% in 2019.
In Madrid the pause is being more gradual. Between the last quarter of 2019 and the last quarter of 2018, prices increased 7.4% to an average of 3,332.9 euros per square meter. It is a considerable pace, but more than one point below those registered in 2018 (8.5%) and 2017 (8.9%). Something similar happens in Seville, where housing grew 5.1% compared to 6.9% the previous year.
Among the six cities that exceed half a million inhabitants, Malaga (with a year-on-year growth of 8.9%) and Valencia (8.7%) are the ones that showed the highest rising rates. But even in these cases there is a clear deceleration: in the Andalusian city the houses increased in price a year earlier to 12.9% and in the Valencian capital they did so at 15.5%.
Tensions move away from the metropolis
Another pattern observed in almost all those cities is that price tensions in their metropolitan areas are increasingly moving away from the center. The phenomenon is very clear in Madrid. 17 towns around the capital saw their prices increase by more than 10% in 2018. Last year, all those municipalities returned to single-digit growth. And of all the nuclei of more than 25,000 inhabitants (those contemplated by the statistics of the Ministry) that are in the Community of Madrid, the one that grew the most was Aranjuez, located 50 kilometers from the capital. In the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Gavà was the city where prices tightened the most (they grew 17.7%), but the other two cities with the highest price increases in the province were Premià de Mar (27 kilometers from the capital Catalan) and Vic (73 kilometers away).
Gavà, precisely, is one of the municipalities throughout Spain where prices increased the most. They only did more in Calvià, located in the east of Mallorca, since there the houses became more expensive by 18.7%. Another island city ranked third in the municipalities where housing increased the most: Puerto del Rosario, the capital of Fuerteventura, saw floor prices grow by 16.4%.
San Sebastian, the most expensive
In absolute terms, San Sebastián finishes another year as the most expensive city in Spain. The square meter is quoted there at 3,811.1 euros on average. They are only 1.2 euros more than in Ibiza, which in the middle of the year fleetingly took the scepter of the municipalities with the most prohibitive houses from the Basque city. After San Sebastián and Ibiza there is another municipality on the Balearic island, Santa Eurlària des Riu, with 3,711.5 euros per square meter. The fourth position corresponds to Sant Cugat del Vallés (Barcelona) with 3,474.6 euros per square meter. Barcelona capital (3,387.4 euros) and Madrid (3,332.9 euros) are in fifth and sixth position.
Puertollano (Ciudad Real) and Elda and Villena (both in Alicante) are the three municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants where housing is cheaper. Castellón de la Plana (887 euros per square meter) is the provincial capital where housing has the lowest average price.