Home sales in Vigo slump while prices keep climbing

Home sales in Vigo slump while prices keep climbing

In Vigo, real estate agents insist that everything sells, at any price. But the reality shown in the property registers tells a different story: transactions are plummeting while, at the same time, prices remain at levels many consider absurd for the city. A few weeks ago, the same newspaper now reporting the slowdown revealed that 200 new homes had gone three years without a buyer. The contradiction is obvious.

Notary data: fewer deals, higher prices

The General Council of Notaries has just published the June figures. Home sales in Spain fell 4.0% year on year, to 67,529 transactions. However, the average price rose 8.8%, reaching 2,114 euros per square metre. In other words, fewer people are buying, but what little does sell is more expensive. The decline affects thirteen autonomous regions, with especially sharp drops in the Basque Country (-14.2%), La Rioja (-12.5%) and the Balearic Islands (-11.4%).

The paradox of unsold stock and inflated prices

Some argue the problem is not demand but supply: there are no homes for sale or rent, and that is why transactions are falling. But the reality is more nuanced. In Vigo, new developments sitting unsold coexist with private owners asking truly outrageous sums. The typical case: an owner who does not need to sell and asks 425,000 euros for a flat on a street where similar ones sell for 280,000, convinced their property is a listed heritage asset. Meanwhile, the quality of available housing leaves much to be desired: poor homes commanding the prices of good ones, with no financing to back them up.

The underlying problem: owners who won't sell

The key lies in the ownership structure. Many owners are elderly people with guaranteed pensions and houses paid off decades ago. They don't need the money, so they prefer to leave the property empty rather than sell it cheap. The situation reaches absurd extremes in Ourense, where there are 15,000 properties in poor condition or derelict in a city of about 105,000 inhabitants. Owners would rather see them crumble than sell at a low price.

Until owning multiple homes or leaving houses empty is seriously taxed in Galicia, the situation will not change. But no party in the region dares to propose it. The result is a frozen market: high prices, falling transactions and an increasingly degraded housing stock. The most striking figure: in Ourense, with 105,000 inhabitants, there are 15,000 derelict properties. That is not a market, it is a brick graveyard.