Mallorca property: 27% of home buyers are foreign

There has been an increase in sales of stand-alone properties. | Archive

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma17/11/2020 07:36

The latest Property Registrars report indicates that 27.1% of all home purchases in the Balearics in the third quarter of this year were by foreign buyers. Nationally, the figure was 11.4%, a slight increase on the 10.7% in the April to June period. The largest foreign buyer market was British (13%), followed by French (nine per cent), Belgian and German (both 8.3%) and Moroccan (6.6%). Immediately behind the Balearics in terms of foreign buying were the Canaries with 26.3% of the market and Valencia with 24.1%.

The report reveals that the sale of stand-alone houses reached record highs in the third quarter, while apartments were at a minimum. This is being attributed to Covid. Sales of houses accounted for 20.4% of the total, and these were typically for properties with open spaces (gardens and terraces). Sales of apartments, 79.6%, were at historic lows. There was also demand for larger areas, with the average having risen to 110.2 square metres. Again, this is being put down to the "current context of the health crisis".

Between July and September there were 102,197 sales in all. These were up 33.5% compared with the second quarter. Of these, 22,269 were new homes, which represented a quarterly increase of almost sixty per cent.

By comparison with the third quarter of 2019, sales were down 16.6%, and these moderated the fall in sales for the year. In the second quarter there was a 40% drop.