Neither the increase in mortgage rates, nor the rise in prices, nor the uncertainty due to the effects of the war in Ukraine slow down the appetite for home buyers in Asturias. During last May, 1,014 home sales transactions were closed in the Principality, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE) published yesterday. To find a month of May with a figure above a thousand operations in Asturias, you have to go back to 2008, when the real estate bubble burst.
Last March, the thousand operations were already exceeded in Asturias (1,068). However, from the association of real estate agencies of Asturias, Asocias, it had been highlighted that the data for that month could be “exceptional” as the purchase and sale operations accelerated due to the announcement by several banks of raising the interest rates of mortgages to from April. There was, therefore, expectation in the real estate sector to know the evolution from that month. In April, according to the INE, there was a month-on-month decrease in operations, which fell to 861, but in May they have rebounded and are once again above a thousand operations (1,014).
The year-on-year increase in operations in May in Asturias was 26%, the highest rate in northern Spain. Most of the purchase and sale operations registered in May were for second-hand homes. A total of 886 compared to 128 of new construction.
“Figures are being reported in Asturias that have never been seen in the last decade,” said Ernesto Ferrer-Bonsoms, business director at Solvia, which has just opened a branch in Oviedo in light of the “boom”. Ferrer-Bonsoms attributed the “sweet moment” to the latent demand for moving to a house more in line with the needs, the profitability of real estate assets and the recovery of the second home market.