The sale of homes in Spain fell 3.3% in 2019 compared to a year earlier, up to 501,085 transactions , according to data released Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

This is the first year-on-year setback on this indicator since 2013 , in which sales decreased 1.9%.

Of the total housing transactions in 2019, 81.5% corresponded to second-hand transactions, while 18.5% were newly built.

In December, the sale of homes increased 1.8% year-on-year, to 34,767 units (81.1% used).

In the crisis period, the worst years for housing transactions were 2009 and 2008, in which these operations collapsed 25.1% and 28.8%, respectively. In 2012 and 2011, there were still double-digit declines (-11.5% and -18.1%), while in 2013 the decline moderated to 1.9% due to the end of the tax benefits for the acquisition of housing.

The decline in the sale of homes in 2019 has been due to the contraction experienced in operations on second-hand apartments, which fell 4.2%, to 408,241 transactions. In contrast, operations on new homes increased 1.2% last year, to 92,844, which has already accumulated three consecutive years of progress.

However, 2019 has been the most moderate growth in that period. 90.5% of the homes transmitted by sale during the past year were free homes and 9.5% were protected. In total, the sale of free homes decreased 3.1% in 2019 , to 453,572 operations, while the sale of protected homes decreased 4.9%, to 47,513 transactions.

In 2019, the largest number of home sales for every 100,000 inhabitants occurred in Comunidad Valenciana (1,890), Andalucía (1,511) and La Rioja (1,503).

Andalusia was the region that carried out the most housing operations last year, with 100,339 sales, followed by Catalonia (79,751), Comunidad Valenciana (74,910) and Madrid (70,835). The communities that made the least number of home sales were La Rioja (3,712), Navarra (5,508 operations) and Cantabria (6,263).

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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