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The most recent property data released by the College of Registrars has revealed that one in every four homes sold in the Region of Murcia during the first quarter of 2024 has been bought by a foreign, non-Spanish, buyer.

 

What’s more, the number of home sales increased between January and March of this year, up to 5,902 registered sales, an increase of 20.8% compared to the last quarter of 2023.

 

The uptick in the number of property purchases in Murcia and the fact that a quarter of those involved foreign buyers will come as no surprise to local estate agents, who have reported a buzz of demand from foreigners looking to buy villas and apartments in the area and who barely have enough homes for sale to meet that demand.

 

With 23.36% of homes purchased by foreigners, the Region of Murcia is the autonomous community in Spain with the fourth highest proportion of foreign buyers, behind the Balearic Islands (31.72%), the Valencian Community (28.79%) and the Canary Islands (26.01%).

 

This figure of 23.36% is actually ever so slightly below that which Murcia saw in the first quarter of 2023, when foreigners bought 24.38% of the houses that were sold.

 

In Spain as a whole, the number of home purchases by foreigners during the first quarter of 2024 was 14.21%, one percentage point less than in the final quarter of last year.

 

However, the College of Registrars report points out that, “in absolute terms there has also been an increase in the number of purchases by foreigners, exceeding 21,500, compared to less than 20,000 in the previous quarter”.

 

This percentage decrease, with an increase in absolute terms, is due “to the increase in the number of sales in the last quarter”.

 

 

In the Region of Murcia, the foreigners who continue to buy the most homes are the British; in 2023, Brits accounted for around a quarter of all the homes purchased by buyers from other countries, or around one in every eight of the total number of home sales.

 

The latest report from the College of Registrars for the first quarter of 2024 does not specify the country of origin of the foreign buyers, but for the year 2023, we know the in joint second place behind the Brits came Moroccan and Belgian buyers with 14.37% apiece.

 

As well as in Murcia, Brits are the leading buyers in all the communities along the Mediterranean coast, except in the Balearic Islands, where the first place goes to the Germans.

 

Interestingly, only around half of the foreigners who purchased property in the Region of Murcia in the first quarter of this year needed a mortgage to do so, with the rest all paying the entire amount upfront.