This strong increase was fundamentally due to the trade in ‘used’ houses, which went up by 17.8% compared to 2015, while transactions in new houses was down 1.7%. 18.7% of houses bought and sold in in 2016 were new (75,618 bought and sold, the lowest recorded), and 81.3% were not newly built (328,248 transactions).
Results according to individual autonomous community
The total number of houses on the property registers for each 100.00 inhabitants recorded the highest numbers in 2016 in Aragón (7,168), La Rioja (7,147) and Castilla y León (6,994). The Balearic Islands (12.7%), The Canaries (8.3%) and Community Valenciana (7,1%) recorded the highest rates of variation in 2016. In turn, Galicia (–13.2%), La Rioja (–12.2%) and Castilla–La Mancha (–4.8%) showed the biggest annual decrease.
As regards the registered house transactions, the communities with the highest number of transfers per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016 were the Balearic Islands (1,521), Community Valenciana (1,478) and the Canaries (1,196). The number of housing transactions increased in all the communities. The Balearic Islands (31.0%), Cataluña (20.0%) and Extremadura (18. 6%) with the greatest increase. La Rioja (5.7%), the Region of Murcia (7.5%) and Galicia (7.7%) recorded the lowest increases.