2023-07-17 10:20:02
When you go looking for a home to buy, the options are very diverse: new construction, second-hand, self-development, bare ownership… And the forms of financing can also vary: pay the house with mortgagewithout a mortgage or with a personal loan are the most common options.
But how does a private citizen really buy his home in Spain? From the comparator and mortgage adviser iAhorro they have carried out a survey from which a majority profile can be drawn: “Most of the people who buy a home in our country are forced to opt for a second hand housing; they choose a house located in a medium-sized town, possibly on the outskirts of a large city; its initial objective is to use it as habitual residence and, to be able to face an average price of about 200,000 euros, ask for a mortgage to a financial entity”, points out the director of Mortgages of the comparator, Simone Colombelli.
However, there are exceptions, among which we would find buyers who purchase the home without financing, that is, who pay in cash, which represent 17.5% of the total, and those who request a personal loan to pay for the house instead of a mortgage loan, whose percentage drops to 4.1%. And it is that, the director of Mortgages of iAhorro qualifies that “there are three realities: that of the working citizen who has to ask for a mortgage to be able to pay the house payment, that of those who make a purchase of little amount without financing or asking for a not very high personal loan, and that of the great fortunes that pay expensive houses to tocateja ”. But this also depends on the price of the house.
The higher the price of the house, the more you pay in cash
“Most of those surveyed, 64.7% of the total, have placed the value of their home between 100,000 and 300,000 euros, so the average price would be around 200,000 euros,” says Colombelli, who also adds that “It is not the same to buy in big cities like Madrid or Barcelona to go to the periphery or even to other less inhabited areas of Spain and with less supply, but also demand”.
That average price of 200,000 euros, therefore, is also determined because the majority of those surveyed, up to 54.40%, have bought or intend to buy a home this year in a town of between 1,000,000 and 200,000 population; only 14.8% do so in a more populated city, that is, in Madrid or Barcelona; 18% in one with between 200,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, and the remaining 12.8% in smaller towns.
For this reason, if we add the price to the financing variable, we see that, in homes with less than 100,000 euros, 38.6% of the people who buy do not request financing. “When the amounts are small, and therefore it is amortized very quickly, that additional cost in interest rates is assumed,” Colombelli explains. And, despite the fact that in the following tranches that percentage goes down, starting with homes between 400,000 and 500,000 euros, it picks up a little again (15.1%) and skyrockets among those with a price of more than 500,000 euros. (44.4%). “Here we see the third reality, that of wealthy people who do not need to ask a bank for money to be able to pay for a home,” says the iAhorro spokesperson.
The little offer of new construction that there is is expensive and sells very quickly
Regarding the type of housing, only 21% of those surveyed by the comparator have chosen to buy a new-build home compared to 78.9% who opted for second-hand homes. One of the reasons, as Colombelli explains, is that “on offer, no matter how much we have advanced in recent years, new-build housing is still very much in the minority and is also more expensive. However, the one that is put up for sale sells very quickly. In second hand there is more offer and, therefore, also most competitive prices”.
It must be taken into account that new construction includes self-development homes, which account for only 0.9% of the total sales; the subsidized housing, whose percentage rises a little, to 1.7%; and new construction homes under the cooperative regime, which represent 2.1% of the operations. For its part, within second-hand homes we also find repossession/auction homes (0.5% of the total), rental homes with the option to buy (0.6%) and bare ownership homes (0 ,3%).
And, finally, another of the most outstanding conclusions of the survey is that the majority of Spaniards buy in order to allocate that home as their habitual residence, specifically 71.2%. Although it is true that 18.3% buy a second residence, the remaining 10.5% intend to use the new home acquired as a form of investment, with its subsequent sale or rental.
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