Residential Building Licences Up 29.9%

Housing development activity is showing signs of improvement, according to Spain’s Ministry of Public Works, which announced last week that the number of building permits granted for residential new construction inSpain reached a total of 15,178 at the end of the first four months of 2015, representing an increase of 29.9% compared to the same period of 2014, when a total of 11,680 permits were authorised.

Of the total number of licences granted between January and April, some 10,898 were for apartment blocks (with a year-on-year increase of 38.6%) and 4,269 were for individual family homes, with an annual increase of 12%.

In addition, El Mundo reported that permit applications were made for 11 other buildings not intended for family dwellings, which is two more than in 2014.

This significant four-monthly increase comes after permits for new builds ended a run of seven consecutive years of negative figures in 2014, rising by 1.7% to a total of 34,873 permits.
This real estate market indicator registered a record low in 2013, of 34,288 permits issued, which represented a decline of 96% since the peak reached in 2006, when a total of 865,561 permits were authorised.