Spain's Property Market in Q2 2026: Fewer Sales, Record Prices, Record Foreign Demand

Start with the least comfortable number. At 167,934 registered sales, the second quarter was the quietest in seven quarters, down 5.7% on the first quarter and 2.3% on a year earlier. New-build sales fell hardest, down 11.5% quarter on quarter, and fifteen of Spain's seventeen regions recorded quarterly declines.

After two exceptional years, the Spanish market is transacting less. That is worth saying plainly, because what follows makes more sense with it in view.

Fewer sales did not mean softer prices. The registry's average price reached €2,487/m² nationally, a record, up 9.2% year on year. Its repeat-sales index, which tracks the same homes changing hands over time and is the closest thing Spain has to a like-for-like measure, rose 16.7% year on year to a new all-time high, now 39% above the previous peak of 2007.

Fewer transactions at higher prices points to a market that has become more selective rather than weaker: demand concentrating on the homes worth competing for, while the rest sit. For buyers, that distinction matters more than any headline. It is also worth remembering that these are national averages of registered sale prices; prime coastal markets operate far above them, and on different dynamics.

Now the number that explains why the slowdown feels invisible in Marbella. Foreign buyers accounted for 15.98% of all Spanish home purchases in the second quarter, the highest share ever measured, with more than 26,800 purchases. Every single region in Spain saw its foreign share increase. In Málaga province, 37% of all purchases came from foreign buyers, among the highest in the country and behind only Alicante's 46%.

Put the two trends together: overall transactions fell 2.3% year on year, while foreign purchases rose in both percentage and absolute terms. International demand is not just holding up in a cooling market; it is taking a larger share of it. We documented the longer arc of this in our analysis of the year after the golden visa; the trend has since strengthened further: the foreign share is now above anything recorded while the visa existed.

The three largest buyer groups will surprise nobody who knows this coast: British buyers led at 6.99% of foreign purchases, followed almost exactly by the Dutch at 6.94% and Germans at 6.11%. The familiar northern European markets, in other words, continue to carry international demand in Spain.

A more selective market rewards preparation and punishes drift. Three practical conclusions from this quarter's data.

• Do not wait for the transaction dip to become a price dip; on the current data, prices are accelerating, not softening, and mortgage activity over the trailing year is up 9%.
• In a market where demand concentrates on quality, the well-priced, well-located home still sells quickly while everything else lingers; speed and preparation matter when the right property appears.
• Competition on this coast is increasingly international: in Málaga province, more than one in three buyers is now foreign, which shapes both what sells fast and how negotiations run.

We work with international buyers across Marbella and the Costa del Sol daily, in exactly the market these numbers describe. If you want to know what this quarter's data means for a specific area or budget, contact us and we will show you, with current examples rather than averages.

Ask about your market →