Gap between Idealista and notary prices hits 44% in Spain in 2025

Idealista prices are no longer even a clue: the gap with notary prices is 44%

Why does the flat you see on Idealista never get signed off at that price? The answer lies in an analysis by UVE Valoraciones that has hit the nail on the head: the difference between what listing portals ask and what is actually closed before a notary has gone from 12% in 2021 to 44% in 2025. This is not a market adjustment, it is a method mismatch.

The gap widens: from 12% to 44% in four years

The analysis by UVE Valoraciones, published in October 2025, reveals that the gap between the prices advertised on portals such as Idealista and Fotocasa and the real prices of notarised transactions has almost quadrupled in four years. In Fotocasa's case, the difference has gone from 8% to 32%. The main explanation is not that every flat sells 30% below its listing, but that the set of what is advertised and the set of what is sold are increasingly not the same set.

The portal effect: weighted by listings, not by areas

Portals weight their figures by number of listings, not by geographic areas. Since 2021, listings have multiplied in expensive provinces, while sales have grown more in cheaper ones. On top of that, the average buyer purchases fewer square metres every year. The result: the statistics compare apples with oranges.

Inflation and bricks and mortar: housing outpaces the CPI

If we take the annual averages of Spain's CPI published by the INE, cumulative inflation from 2022 to 2025 is around 18%: 8.4 in 2022, 3.5 in 2023, 2.8 in 2024 and 2.7 in 2025. Housing, based on notary data, rises between 26% and 29% over the same period. In real terms, housing becomes between seven and nine points more expensive than consumer prices. Wages, meanwhile, rise by 3.1% in 2025, with an average gross salary of 28,410.78 euros. Against a 26% rise in four years, no salary can keep up.

The tax bite: Hacienda takes its share

IBI (Spain's local property tax) runs from 0.4% to 1.10% of the cadastral value, but the big bite is another one. Until 2014 there were updating coefficients, which adjusted the purchase price for inflation so that only the real gain was taxed. Law 26/2014 abolished them with effect from 1 January 2015, and the Constitutional Court upheld the abolition in ruling 67/2023. As a result, of that 26% rise, eighteen points are pure inflation, and you pay tax on them. In addition, every sale is subject to an average 10% transfer tax, which varies by autonomous community.

Meanwhile, the state takes its cut: the abolition of the updating coefficients means you are taxed on inflation you never earned. So property may protect your wealth, but Hacienda (Spain's tax agency) always finds a way to wet its beak. And if anyone believes the gap is down to black money, let them prove it.