El mercado inmobiliario de Barcelona en el cuarto trimestre de 2024

Are you looking for the latest information about the evolution of the real estate market in Barcelona from the fourth quarter of 2023? Below, let’s take a look at what’s happening in the Barcelona property market from October to December 2023.

The Property Market in Spain Q4 2023

The property market in Spain recorded a 13.9% drop in transactions in the last quarter of 2023 compared to the last quarter in 2022, according to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE).

129,489 properties changed hands from October to December, representing the lowest volume for this quarter since 2020.

New home transactions in the last quarter of 2023 fell by 7.4% year-on-year, totalling 24,598 transactions from October to December. Second hand property transactions decreased by 15.3% with 104,891 property sales from October to December of 2023.

Prices have continued to rise in Spain, however, and are nearly double what they were in December 2014 (€1,564 per square metre). At the end of December 2023, the average property price was €2,042 per square metre, an increase of 8.16% compared to the same quarter of 2022.

The Property Market in Barcelona Province Q4 2023

Property trends in Barcelona Province were similar to those at a national level in that there was a decrease in the total number of properties changing hands in the last quarter of 2023, with 12,877 transactions recorded during this period compared to 15,344 in the same period in 2022. This represented a fall of 16.1%. The number of second hand property transactions decreased by 19.5%, when compared to the last quarter of 2022, with 10,413 transactions taking place but new home sales went up in the last quarter of 2023. Year-on-year there was a rise of 2.2%, with 2,464 transactions being carried out.

Barcelona City

The latest figures from the Generalitat de Catalunya (GenCat) again show a similar trend, with the number of property transactions in the last quarter of 2023 in the city of Barcelona registering a fall of almost 20% when compared to the last quarter of 2022. 3,274 properties changed hands in the period from October to December of 2023, whilst 4,067 sales were carried out in the same period in 2022. Only one of the city’s ten districts, Sant Andreu, registered a year-on-year increase (20.56%) in the number of sales with all of the other nine districts registering decreases ranging from 8.78% in the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi to 43.15% in the disctrict of Nou Barris.

– Sant Andreu: 299 sales (20.56% increase)

– Sarrià-Sant Gervasi: 270 sales (-8.78% decrease)

– Sants-Montjuïc: 365 sales (-13.30% decrease)

– Barcelona Old Town: 301 sales (-14.00% decrease)

– Eixample: 577 sales (-16.86% decrease)

– Les Corts: 123 sales (-17.45% decrease)

– Horta-Guinardó: 313 sales (-21.95% decrease)

– Sant Martí: 453 sales (-22.03% decrease)

– Gràcia: 246 sales (-32.42% decrease)

– Nou Barris: 303 sales (-43.15% decrease)

Barcelona Property Prices Q4 2023

According to Idealista, the average property price in Barcelona reached €4,167 per square metre at the end of 2023, marking a 2.56% increase compared to the average price at the end of 2022. Notably, average prices experienced growth across all but one of the city’s ten districts, with the recently regenerated Sant Martí district leading with the highest recorded increase.

– Sant Martí: €3,804 per square metre (5.46% increase)

– Gràcia: €4,599 per square metre (4.71% increase)

– Eixample: €5,097 per square metre (4.30% increase)

– Barcelona Old Town: €4,316 per square metre (3.92% increase)

– Sants-Montjuïc: €3,513 per square metre (3.81% increase)

– Horta-Guinardó: €3,202 per square metre (2.83% increase)

– Les Corts: €4,999 per square metre (1.28% increase)

– Sarrià-Sant Gervasi: €5,498 per square metre (0.66% increase)

– Sant Andreu: €3,160 per square metre (0.06% increase)

– Nou Barris: €2,372 per square metre (0.79% decrease)

While average property prices in Madrid are closing the gap with those in Barcelona City, they continue to be lower overall. Madrid ended 2023 with an average price of €4,118 per square metre, reflecting a yearly increase of 6.11%. In contrast, Barcelona City saw a more modest rise of 2.56%, bringing the average price to €4,167 per square metre by the year’s end.

Barcelona Rental Prices Q4 2023

Spain’s new Housing Law has fallen short of the government’s objectives. Instead of addressing the rental crisis, it has instead exacerbated the plight of many tenants. The implementation of the new regulation has caused a collapse in property supply and as a consequence has driven rental prices to surge sharply upwards. Furthermore, there has been a notable transition from long-term rentals to seasonal rentals, making finding affordable housing even more difficult, particularly for families with children.

According to Idealista, rental prices in all ten of Barcelona’s districts registered an annual increase at the end of 2023. In desirable Gràcia rental prices were up by a massive 19.08%. Across the city as a whole, average rental prices increased by 12%, ending the year on €20.5 per square metre.

– Gràcia: €20.6 per square metre (19.08% increase)

– Sant Andreu: €16.2 per square metre (18.25% increase)

– Sants-Montjuïc: €18.6 per square metre (16.25% increase)

– Nou Barris: €15.4 per square metre (14.93% increase)

– Horta-Guinardó: €16.1 per square metre (14.18% increase)

– Eixample: €21.9 per square metre (14.06% increase)

– Les Corts: €18.8 per square metre (12.57% increase)

– Sant Martí: €21.1 per square metre (12.23% increase)

– Barcelona Old Town: €23.8 per square metre (11.21% increase)

– Sarrià-Sant Gervasi: €20.4 per square metre (2.00% increase)

Foreign buyers in Barcelona Q4 2023

Data from the Spanish Land Registry (Registradores) showed that at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 the percentage of foreign buyers in the province of Barcelona since the end of the fourth quarter of 2022 stood at 13.01%. This is a significant increase on the similar previous period (from the end of the last quarter of 2021 to the end of the fourth quarter of 2022) when 10.26% of all buyers were from overseas.

The share of foreign buyers continues to be significantly higher in Barcelona Province than in the Community of Madrid, where 6.34% of buyers were from overseas in the period from the end of the fourth quarter of 2022 to the end of the fourth quarter of 2023.

Whilst the numbers of foreign buyers have more or less stayed the same in Barcelona City, they now account for more than a quarter (27.3%) of all sales in the Catalan capital according to statistics from GenCat. This is mainly due to the fall in the numbers of local buyers, who bought 25% fewer properties during the last quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2023.

Evolution of the Barcelona real estate market: Q4 2023