As I have been commenting lately, the data on the market shows a cooling down of the real estate market in Marbella and Benahavis with an increase on the stock of properties for sale, the offer, and a decrease on the number of sales, the demand. I think and hope that this is just a correction on the market as I can still see an active demand for properties, although lower than in previous years, that can let the number of sales in Marbella in 2019 reach the 3.800 units. This number is lower than the 4.000 units sold in previous years but much better than the 2.000 units number we saw during the hardest years of the crisis. However, this unbalanced market we are seeing, offer going up and demand decreasing, is starting to affect the prices despite the still wealthy number of transactions. To show this, the chart with the price per square meter of closed properties published by the Notaries of Spain for Marbella (those prices are not published for Benahavis) has been attached to this article where it can be seen that the closed price per square meter has gone down 9,3% in the last six months. To corroborate those numbers, the price index published by the Ministry of Housing and the price index of the real estate portal Idealista have been also included in the charts below showing the same tendency. The price index published by Idealista includes also the information on Benahavis showing the same downward trend. Although the tendency is similar, the percentages change depending on the source. The prices published by the Notaries on closed properties show a higher reduction than those of Idealista that may indicate that the owners looking to sell are still not accepting the reduction on prices needed to achieve that sale.
I would not be able to say how is going to be the adjustment as it is going to be highly dependent on the activity of the market that is being affected by the international political instabilities and, locally, by the unbalanced market so, if you have an interest on the real estate market, keep a close eye to see how things develop to be able to take informed decisions.
