Despite a small increase in property sales in December 2012 in comparison to Dec 2011 the overall annual figure for Spanish property transfers fell by 11.3%.
Of the 49 thousand of total properties sold 23 thousand related to dwellings.
In December the amount of sold new properties increased slightly as sales completed before the end of the month of people taking advantage of the reduced IVA and capital gains tax breaks. Sales of second hand properties on the other hand dropped. For new dwellings property transactions were up 3.8% in comparison to the same month of the previous year. With IVA now back up from 4% to 10% it is unlikely the trend will continue.
The overall reduction of property sales continued as it has done for the last 5 years with 2012 showing no increases but yet another year of declining sales despite the sweeteners put in place by the Government to encourage sales.
For the month of December the amount of private sales increased from the corresponding month in 2011 by 5.7%. Protected housing known in Spain as VPOs however dropped by 19.9%.
Overall the drop annually on transactions was minus 10% for private or free housing and minus 20% for VPO,s. Outside of dwellings over half of the transactions in the month came from Swaps, inheritance and donations. Only inheritance saw any kind of increase in 2012.