Spain’s housing market found its footing in August. Registers compiled by the Colegio de Registradores, which works from completed sales rather than from asking prices, show 48,674 homes changed hands during the month, a rise of 1.3 per cent on August 2025. It is only the second monthly increase of 2026, after June.
Mortgage lending on homes moved the same way, up 1.6 per cent to 33,649 new loans. That pairing matters more than either number on its own, because it says demand held steady through a slow year for sales. Even so, the registrars call August an atypical month and refuse to read the figures as a change of trend.
Spain’s Home Sales Rose 1.3 Per Cent in August
The release is an advance from the Estadistica Registral Inmobiliaria, the registry statistics the Colegio de Registradores publishes every month. This one is provisional and projected over 94.8 per cent of the registers analysed, so the final count can shift a little when the whole month is in.
Across every kind of property, not just homes, the registers recorded about 94,600 sales in August, 3.3 per cent more than a year earlier. Home sales are the slower half of that total. That gap has been open since January, with the wider market rising in most months while home sales fell back, and August is one of the few months where both moved up together.
- Home sales: 48,674, up 1.3 per cent in a year
- All property sales: about 94,600, up 3.3 per cent
- Home mortgages: 33,649, up 1.6 per cent
- All mortgages: 43,400, down 0.3 per cent
Mortgages Held Up Even as Total Lending Slowed
The split inside the mortgage figures is the useful part. Lending secured on all kinds of property slipped 0.3 per cent, to 43,400 loans, but the loans written against homes rose 1.6 per cent. Money going into the residential market held up while commercial and land lending pulled the total down.
There is a ratio worth keeping in your head. Across the past year, home mortgages usually covered more than 70 per cent of home sales; in August the figure was 69.1 per cent. That sits just under the norm, and it points to a market where a slightly larger share of buyers paid without a Spanish loan, which is common among foreign buyers drawing on savings or borrowing in their home country.
Regional Splits Sit Behind the National Average
A national average of 1.3 per cent hides regions moving in opposite directions. Home sales rose in ten of the seventeen autonomous communities. Extremadura led with a 19.3 per cent rise, followed by Cantabria at 13.7 per cent and Murcia at 13.4 per cent. Sharpest falls came in La Rioja, down 18.7 per cent, Castilla y Leon, down 10.4 per cent, and the Balearic Islands, down 9.4 per cent.
By volume, the big three kept their lead: Andalusia recorded 9,402 home sales, Catalonia 8,292 and the Valencian Community 7,427, with Madrid fourth at 5,037. Mortgages follow a similar geography, up strongly in Extremadura, Navarre and the Canary Islands, and down in La Rioja, the Balearics and Aragon. A client buying in one of those falling regions is looking at a different market from the national headline.
What the Numbers Mean for Buyers and Agents
The table below sets the four headline figures against what each one actually tells a client.
| Figure for August 2026 | Reading | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Home sales: 48,674 | Up 1.3 per cent in a year | Second monthly rise of 2026 |
| All property sales: 94,600 | Up 3.3 per cent in a year | The wider market is the stronger half |
| Home mortgages: 33,649 | Up 1.6 per cent in a year | Residential lending held up |
| All mortgages: 43,400 | Down 0.3 per cent in a year | Non-residential lending dragged |
Read it for what it is not. These are completed sales recorded at the register, so the numbers describe deals agreed weeks or months earlier, and the August reading leans on a holiday month that the registrars themselves call atypical. idealista/news, working from the same release, put it plainly: the red numbers gave the market a breather, and nobody is calling it a turn.
- Quote the home-sales series for a home, and the all-property series only when a client is buying land or commercial space
- Treat one month as one month, because two rises in eight months is not a recovery
- Use the mortgage-to-sales ratio, 69.1 per cent in August, to explain how much of the market still borrows locally
- Check the region, since La Rioja and the Balearics are falling while Extremadura and Murcia climb
- Remember that the register lags the deal, so August data describes spring and early summer viewings
Where the Spanish Housing Market Goes Next
The next real test is the September release, when the register counts a normal working month and the summer distortion drops out. If home sales rise again there, the two-month pattern starts to look like a floor rather than a blip. If they fall back, August joins the list of one-off readings this market has produced all year.
For an agent, the practical line barely changes either way. Prices are still firm, mortgages are still being written, and the regional gaps are wider than the national number suggests. What August adds is a small piece of evidence that buyers are still transacting, and that is worth having when a client asks whether the market has gone quiet.
Questions Agents Ask About the Spanish Market
Are home sales rising in Spain?
Slightly. Its count for August was 48,674 home sales, 1.3 per cent more than a year earlier, the second monthly rise of 2026 after June. All property sales grew faster, at 3.3 per cent, so homes are the slower half of the story.
Who publishes these property sales figures?
It comes from the Colegio de Registradores, the body that represents Spain’s property registrars, which publishes the Estadistica Registral Inmobiliaria from the sales recorded in the registers. It is a different series from the one the national statistics office, the INE, builds from notarial data, and the two can differ because they count at different points in the process.
Is the Spanish housing market recovering?
Registrars say it is too early to call. August is a holiday month, so a single rise cannot be read as a change of trend, and home sales have fallen in most months of 2026. An honest answer is that the market stopped falling in August, not that it has turned.
What is the mortgage-to-sales ratio?
It is the number of home mortgages divided by the number of home sales. Over the past year it has usually sat above 70 per cent, and in August it was 69.1 per cent. A lower ratio means a larger share of buyers paid without a Spanish mortgage, which is common among foreign buyers.
Where are Spanish home sales falling?
La Rioja fell 18.7 per cent in August, Castilla y Leon 10.4 per cent and the Balearic Islands 9.4 per cent. Madrid slipped 2.6 per cent and Andalusia 0.5 per cent, while Extremadura, Cantabria and Murcia posted double-digit gains. That national figure averages over very different regional markets.
