07 April 2008
The latest report conducted by the Valencia Housing Observatory (OVV), part of the Generalitat of Valencia’s Environment, Water, City Planning and Housing Department, analyses the real estate transactions and nationalities of the buyers throughout the Autonomous Region of Valencia. The document shows the foreign population’s motives for buying a residence in one of the three provinces within the autonomous community to be the following two: residential tourism, as is the case in Valencia and, predominantly Alicante, and socio-economic improvement, which is the case in Valencia and Castellón. In 2006, the latest fiscal year for which all official data have been made available, reveals that a total of 136,720 real estate transactions took place in the Autonomous Region of Valencia, 62.5% of which were used and 37.5% of which were new constructions. According to the sample, 81.31% of these residences were acquired by Spanish citizens, while the percentage of foreign buyers was 18.69%. Generally, the nationality that had the greatest impact on the buying and selling of residences in 2006 within the region was the United Kingdom, representing 36.39% of all foreign real estate transactions. The UK was followed by Ecuador (8.31%), Romania (7.02%), Morocco (6.13%), Colombia (4.97%), Ireland (3.53%), Russia (2.04%), Holland (1.99%), Germany (1.74%) and Ukraine (1.69%). These 10 nationalities represented 74.11% of the total number of real estate acquisitions carried out by foreigners.
Despite these figures, the foreign population’s participation in real estate acquisition is not identical across the three provinces – differing in percentages and in the principle nationalities of the acquirers. In fact, of the residences bought by foreigners in 2006, 78% are located in Alicante, followed by Valencia, with 12% and Castellón, whose transactions don’t even reach 10% of the Autonomous Region’s total.
MEDITERRÁNEO 26 March 2008
