MADRID, 16 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The real estate portals foresee a drop in sales in the coming quarters, when the rise in interest rates by the European Central Bank (ECB) begins to be reflected in the data, which has not yet been perceived in the data published this Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The sale of homes rose 11.4% last October in relation to the same month of 2021, to a total of 51,615 operations, its highest figure in an October since 2007, when more than 58,500 sales were exceeded, according to the INE.

The idealista spokesman, Francisco Iñareta, specifies that "the lag of these public data means that the statistics barely reflect the impact of the increase in the cost of financing in the market and therefore shows a scenario prior to these increases."

"There is no doubt that until the end of the summer of 2022 the sector experienced an extraordinarily high volume of operations, since it will close the year with more than 600,000 homes sold," it adds, in a statement.

From idealista they predict that the impact of the ECB measures will begin to be appreciated in the statistics for November and, above all, in those for December.

"The most probable scenario is that we will witness a reduction in operations that will continue during the following quarters, until reaching an environment of 500,000 operations closed in one year," says Iñareta.

For her part, the director of Studies and spokesperson for Fotocasa, María Matos, describes 2022 as "the new golden year after the boom of 2007", due to the sales figures registered.

"It is already exceeding the figures of a key year such as 2021. All this, despite the change in monetary policy, which is why it is verified that the boom in the real estate sector continues despite the rate hikes of interest in June, September and October", says Matos.

The Director of Studies at Fotocasa notes that "there is still great activity in the housing market", although she also warns that the known figures do not yet reflect the changes in monetary policy.

"The purchases closed in October were not yet faced with September mortgage rates, because they are operations that take an estimated time of between 60 and 90 days, between the signing of the deposit and the granting of the mortgage, so it is likely that the The first rate hikes carried out in July and September had not yet had a slowing effect, since they are operations that had already started previously," he details.

Looking ahead to the coming months, Matos believes that the real estate market will be marked by this rise in interest rates and by inflation, which "little by little is going to start making a dent in the pocket of households and the ability to save is going to see diminished".

"This can mean that in the long run, Spaniards cannot save as much for the purchase of a home and therefore the purchase and sale of real estate is slowed down," he says.

The director of Estudios de pisos.com, Ferran Font, also confirms that the market tends "to moderate", despite continuing "installed in record numbers".

"The upward trend is confirmed for the 20th consecutive month, although it can be expected that the negative values ​​will arrive sooner rather than later. If the analysis is done taking into account what has happened during the last 12 months, the accumulated transactions are already close to 650,000 , although it is true that this figure will surely begin to decrease in the next statistics", comments Font.

The director of Estudios de pisos.com explains that the sales data known to date "have their origin in the accumulated activity throughout the year as a result of a very active demand", but advances that it will be necessary to observe the next statistics to confirm the trend change.