Madrid (EFE).- Registered housing sales fell by 6.7% in May compared to the same month of 2022, while mortgages for purchases accentuated their fall to 24.2%, according to advance data sent this Tuesday by the College of Registrars of Spain.
Specifically, in May 54,063 home sales were recorded, 4,000 less than in the same period of the previous year.
Regarding housing mortgages, 32,043 operations were set up in May, around 10,200 fewer than the previous year, in a context marked by the rise in interest rates to cope with inflation and the consequent increase in financing costs. .
By autonomous communities
By autonomous communities, the greatest decreases in home sales were registered in La Rioja (37%); Canary Islands (20.7%); Madrid (20.6%); Basque Country (18.9%) or the Balearic Islands (17.5%).
In the case of mortgages, the greatest falls occurred in the Canary Islands (42.6%) and the Balearic Islands (36.8%), followed by Extremadura (32%); Galicia (31.5%) or Catalonia (30.9%).
With these data, in May the drop in sales moderated, while the granting of mortgages accentuated its collapse compared to April.
Mortgages, as in the case of sales, have slowed down significantly since June of last year, showing in July the first annual decline in total mortgages in almost a year and a half (2.9%), while home mortgages still held slight annual growth (1.1%).
In the following months, more moderate growth was observed until December, when there were falls of more than 8%.
In May, following the trend of sales, with four consecutive months of progressive declines, the two modalities, sales and mortgages, were at negative values, being more intense in mortgages, with a fall of 24.3% in those of housing, and 22.5% in the total.