The adjustment comes with an uncomfortable paradox for buyers: fewer homes are being sold, but prices continue to rise. The square meter rose by 5.4%, to 1,977 euros, and the average mortgage amount increased by 6.3%, to 175,904 euros.
Housing cools: purchases fall and mortgages barely move
The housing market is beginning to show clear signs of fatigue. After months of tension due to prices, scarcity of supply, and difficulties in accessing financing, data from notaries confirm a new slowdown: in February, 55,228 home sales were signed, 7.7% less than in the same month of the previous year.
The fall does not come in isolation. Sales had already fallen in October and November, they closed the year with moderate declines and plummeted with more force in January, with a drop of 11.4%.
February confirms that the market is entering a less expansive phase: fewer operations, more caution, and demand increasingly filtered by income, prior savings, and borrowing capacity.
The most relevant data is not just that fewer houses are being sold. It is that the price continues to rise. Housing became 5.4% more expensive year-on-year in February, and the square meter stood at 1,977 euros. That is to say: the market is losing volume, but it is not broadly correcting prices.
The mortgage isn't moving: it only rises 0.2%
The other great sign of weakness is in mortgages. Loans for home purchases barely grew by 0.2% year-on-year in February, to 30,109 operations. It is a minimal, almost flat increase, which contrasts with the increase in the average price of properties and with the larger amount that buyers need to finance.
The average amount of mortgages reached 175,904 euros, 6.3% more than a year earlier. According to the notarial statistics, that financing covered on average 72.4% of the price of each transaction. In addition, 54.5% of home purchases were financed by mortgage loans, slightly more than half of the total.
The photograph is clear: there are fewer sales, mortgages are barely advancing, but whoever buys needs to go into debt more. Housing is not falling enough to ease access and financing is not growing strongly enough to compensate for the accumulated increase in price.
Fewer operations, but prices still rising
The braking of sales is not causing a generalized drop in prices. The explanation lies in the classic imbalance of the Spanish market: there is a lack of supply where demand is highest. In the strained areas, the scarcity of available housing continues to push prices up even as transactions decrease.
By type of property, apartments were the most affected in terms of sales. Operations on apartments fell by 9.4%, to 41,407 units. In contrast, single-family homes resisted better, with a decrease of 2.3%, to 13,821 operations.
In prices the opposite occurs: apartments became more expensive than houses. The price per square meter in apartments rose by 7.7%, to 2,292 euros, while single-family homes increased by 2.6%, to 1,458 euros per square meter.
Canary Islands, Navarre and Balearic Islands lead the drop in sales
The fall in home sales extended to a good part of the country. According to data from notaries, operations fell in 14 autonomous communities and only grew in three. The largest decreases were recorded in the Canary Islands, with a fall of 21%; Navarre, with 19.2%; and the Balearic Islands, with 18.6%.
Operations also fell in Aragon, with a decrease of 6.4%, and in the Community of Madrid, where sales fell by 6%. On the other hand, only three communities registered increases: Castilla-La Mancha, with 14%; Cantabria, with 6.5%; and La Rioja, with 1.3%.
The map leaves a background reading: the cooling is no longer limited to a specific territory. The adjustment is extending to most communities, although with very different intensities.
Housing continues to rise in 12 communities
Despite the drop in sales, the price of housing rose in 12 autonomous communities. The largest increases were recorded in Cantabria, with an increase of 18.3%, and in the Valencian Community, with 17.4%.
Instead, five communities registered price drops. The sharpest declines occurred in Navarra, with a drop of 13.7%, and Extremadura, with a retreat of 3.5%. RTVE highlights that this is the first time since August 2024 that prices have fallen simultaneously in five autonomous communities.
That data is important because it can anticipate a phase change: not necessarily a market crash, but rather greater fragmentation. There will be areas where prices continue to hold up due to a lack of supply and others where the buyer begins to have more room.
What it means for those who want to buy a house
For those who want to buy housing, the message is uncomfortable: the market is cooling, but it is not clearly getting cheaper. There are fewer transactions, yes, but the average price continues to rise and mortgages are increasingly higher.
This means that the entry barrier remains high. The buyer needs more savings, more income stability, and greater capacity to assume a higher mortgage amount. The drop in sales does not automatically imply an immediate opportunity if prices do not correct.
The key will be in the coming months: if operations continue to fall and mortgages do not rebound, the market could enter a phase of greater pressure on sellers. But, as long as supply remains scarce in large cities and strained areas, the price adjustment may be limited.
The housing market enters a less expansive phase
The February data point to a new phase for housing in Spain. The phase of strong growth in sales and purchases is over, at least for the moment. The market is entering a slower, more selective, and more difficult terrain for households with less savings.
There is no generalized price correction, but there is a clear signal of exhaustion: fewer houses are being sold, mortgages are barely growing, and the financial effort to buy continues to increase.