Overseas Property Investors Investing in Murcia

Around a third of all properties purchased in the Murcia region of Spain during the fourth quarter of 2017 were bought by overseas property investors.

Between October and December 2017, 4,427 sales were completed before notaries in the Murcia region, representing a 22.1 per cent increase over the same period in 2016, and bringing the year total to 15,460 (13.4 per cent higher than in the previous year).

The annual figure represents an increase of 13.4 per cent on the previous year, and momentum seems to be gaining in Murcia, as the first two quarters of the year showed gains of only 5 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.

The data released by the national Ministry of Development last week shows its summary of transaction during the last quarter of 2017.

Data for Spain nationally showed more than half a million sales in 2017 for the first time since before the global financial crisis in 2008, reaching a total of 532,367 following an impressive year-on-year increase of 16.3 per cent for the country as a whole.

This latest national increase in property sales means that transactions are now up by 77 per cent since the property market hit bottom at only just over 300,000 transactions during 2013.

The number of purchases made overseas property investors nationally in Spain rose by 13.5 per cent to 23,555 during 2017, and now accounts for 16.28 per cent of all transactions (just under one in six).

Meanwhile, property transactions in the Murcia region have risen by 57 per cent over the same period, indicating that there is still ground to make up on the Spanish national average.

With momentum certainly rising during the second two quarters of 2017, overseas property investors may feel that this is a good time to purchase in the Murcia region and benefit from the capital gains available while the region catches up with the rest of Spain.