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With countless conflicting opinions on the Spanish property market and where it’s heading at the moment, a call for some reliable data to base a decision on is not an unreasonable request. The Spanish government’s response is that they are to produce a “housing map” to assess the true scale of the Spanish housing crisis. According to the Ministry of Housing it will be the most “up to date and detailed analysis possible of the residential construction sector in Spain.”

Most pressing question…

The most pressing question on most people’s lips is “how large is the surplus stock of new properties that is keeping developers and banks awake at night?” Developers say between 650,000 and 700,000, whilst other experts and analysts consider it could be as high as between 900,000 and 1 million.

Unsold stock…

“The Government has a major interest in knowing how much unsold stock there is. The longer we take to quantify it, the longer it will take for the housing market, and therefore the job market to recover,” said the Ministry of Housing.

Highest ratio…

It doesn’t help that Spain has the highest ratio of properties to households in Europe, and one of the highest in the world. With a housing stock of 26.2 million compared to 18 million households, there are almost 1.5 properties to every household in Spain, according to figures from the Bank of Spain. So it’s not as if there is an acute shortage of housing, though some would argue there is a shortage of the right kind of property, in the right place, at the right price.

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