As mentioned in our January newsletter, the latest data from the Association of Spanish Land Registers shows that German property buyers were leading the way as the largest group of foreign property buyers in Spain. As mentioned in The Times, at the end of last year:
“Spain’s land registry recorded that German buyers accounted for 10.4 per cent of property purchases between June and September this year, compared with 9.9 per cent of British buyers.”
Prior to this, British citizens had been by far the biggest foreign buyers of property in Spain but the travel restrictions imposed by Brexit are starting to have an effect.
The chart below shows Mortgage Direct’s volume of mortgage business by nationality for 2021, with German nationals making up 6.1%. While many Germans speak fluent English, they still prefer to converse with an adviser in their own language and we can now assist with this. We will be introducing our German adviser Erik Gort in future newsletters.
We are currently updating our website and other marketing material to include the German market and contacting all our collaborators who have German speaking agents. Please do get in contact if you would like to be introduced to Erik. A native German with many years experience as a mortgage broker, he will certainly know how to guide German clients through the process of buying in Spain.
Where do German property buyers buy? As Mark Stucklin at SPI quotes, “According to the notaries, German buyers are responsible for 58% non-resident foreign purchases in the Balearics, and 32% in the Canaries. They are also responsible for 28% of home purchases by foreign residents in the Balearics. Back in 2015, 40% of all German buyers went to the Balearics, mainly Mallorca, and although there is no more recent data giving the breakdown of foreign demand by region, it is reasonable to assume that at least 40% of German buyers still head for the Balearics, if not more.”
And our own records back this up. As you can see below, the majority of our German clients buy in the Balearics, more than 3 times more than those buying in Valencia, our 2nd most popular destination.
Look out for our new German website, including quotes and pre-approval forms, coming soon.
