I have gathered the information on sales, not only second hand but also newly built, recently published by the Ministry of Housing, to try to analyze how the real estate market is doing in Marbella and Benahavis. In general I have to say that the market is getting better with some concerns.
Starting with Marbella, the number of transactions keeps on going up and 2018 has had the best first semester in sales of the last five years. I thought we were going to see more transactions of new properties but they are still at a low 3%. During the “good” years that percentage was higher but, right now, most of the new complexes are being developed in municipalities close to Marbella.
On the other hand in Benahavis, the situation is better than last year when we saw a slow first semester but the market is still below the first semester of 2014 and 2016, just before the Brexit vote. I thought the year was going to be better due to the strong start in the first quarter (the best in the last five years) but later on in the second quarter the market slowed down strangely. Something we felt and has now been confirmed by the numbers. On new properties, the percentage of sales in Benahavis is higher than in Marbella reaching a 15% of the transactions probably due to the finishing of the developments started two years ago that are been registered this year.
