Between January and September, more than 8.24 billion euros were invested in the country, a y-o-y growth of 31% and placing these results 18% higher than the performance in same period in 2019, before Covid.
These figures were calculated from an analysis of the Iberian Property Data© database, based on public information, which identified a sample of 182 investment operations carried out in Spain in the first nine months of 2021.
Looking at the track record for the last two years, this analysis concluded that the braking effect of the pandemic on real estate investment in Spain was limited to 2020. The cumulative results until the 3rd quarter of last year did not surpass 6.3 billion euros, approximately 9% below the more than 6.96 billion euros invested in the country during the same period in 2019.
Spain also saw its share grow in Iberian terms, concentrating 87% of the total investment allocated to the Peninsula in 2021 (9.51 billion euros until the end of September) when, one year before, this share was 72% (from an Iberian total of 6.31 billion euros). This result is also a rise from the pre-Covid period, when the Spanish market represented 79% of the 8.87 billion euros invested in Iberia in the first nine months of 2019.
In 2021, once again we observed a trend towards decentralisation of the capital allocated to Spain, at a time when the amounts invested nationwide are growing. Thus, if in the first nine months of 2019 the Madrid and Catalonia regions concentrated 67% of the total amount invested, in 2020 this accumulated performance dropped to 55%, declining again in 2021, to 52%.
Performance almost tripled in Barcelona
Comparing the performance in different Spanish regions, Catalonia stood out the most during the period under analysis. Amounting to 2.62 billion euros, the volume invested in this region until the 3rd quarter almost tripled in annual terms, surpassing by 183% the 926 million euros registered one year before. The growth in the Catalan market is also significant compared with the pre-Covid period, with the amount traded in the first nine months of 2021 surpassing by 50% the approximately 1.75 billion reported for the same period in 2019. We note that the number of operations carried out in Catalonia in the first three quarters of the year has been rising gradually over the last two years, going from 29 in 2019 to 37 in 2020, and reaching 48 this year.
By contrast, the data gathered by Iberian Property Data confirms the continued deceleration of investment in the Madrid region, evident in the persistent decline in the number of deals carried out in the first nine months of the year: 63 in 2019, 58 in 2020 and 46 in 2021. Standing at 1.66 billion euros, the cumulative investment in the first three quarters of 2021 also compares downwards (-34%) with the 2.52 billion euros registered during the same period the previous year and from 2.93 billion euros invested in 2019 (-74%).
Excluding these two regions, the rest of Spain displays strong annual growth in the cumulative investment until September, both in the number of operations (+ 34 than in 2020, to a total of 88) and the amount traded, to 3.97 million euros (+39% than the 2.86 billion euros registered in 2020). The performance reported between January and September 2021 also compares upwards from the pre-Covid period, with 28 more deals closed than in the first nine months of 2019 and investment growing 75% from the 2.29 billion euros recorded during that period.
