The second hand and the new house markets were the main driving force behind this annual growth, the fifth consecutive growth after a 2% increase in 2014, 11.5% in 2015, 14% in 2016 and 15.4% in 2017. 2018 showed the most conservative growth since 2014.
The operations on second hand houses (422.531 transactions, the highest since 2007) increased 9.9% and the operations on new houses (92.520, the highest since 2014), 11.1%.
In 2018, the highest amount of housing purchases per 100.000 inhabitants was in the Valencian Community (2.010), Balearic Islands (1.641) and Andalusia (1.537). Andalusia was the region with the most housing operations last year, with 101.330 purchases, followed by Catalonia (81.020), Valencian Community (78.800) and Madrid (75.845).