The new Mortgage Act that governs real estate credit agreements has three main objectives: to provide more consumer protection, make mortgage contracts more transparent and improve legal certainty in the financial system. All three are vital to ensure the mortgage market functions appropriately and to improve financial stability.
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The Spanish economy is continuing to outperform expectations in 2025, with strong, balanced growth driven by investment and private consumption. This buoyancy is also evident in its sectors of activity: of the 22 sectors analysed in this report, 16 are undergoing an expansionary phase in 2025, compared to only 2 in 2023. The greatest momentum can be seen in industry, where growth is being led by the extractive, chemical, pharmaceutical and refining industries, thanks to high investment, productivity gains and adaptation to the energy transition. Construction and real estate activities are also performing strongly, boosted by residential demand. Although some sectors, such as the textile and wood industries, are facing structural challenges, the economy as a whole is moving towards a more sustainable and diversified growth phase. This climate, marked by a healthy labour market, lower interest rates and stimulus from EU funds, is strengthening the resilience of the Spanish economy in a global environment that is fraught with challenges.
The Spanish real estate market accelerated in 2024, especially in the second half of the year, largely thanks to the fall in interest rates. This was added to a series of factors that are keeping housing demand very dynamic, including significant migration flows, rapid job creation and strong foreign demand. On the other hand, the supply of new housing is beginning to awaken, but it remains insufficient to address the high demand. This mismatch between strong demand and scarce supply is driving up house prices – a trend that we expect to continue in 2025.
Commercial real estate performed very well in the first half of 2022 but this situation is changing rapidly in the wake of the sharp hike in interest rates implemented by the ECB to curb the advance of inflation. All the evidence seems to suggest that office property may see the largest adjustment in valuation terms as this has the narrowest yields. Retail, whose valuations have already suffered several years of intense adjustment, could now become more stable than the rest of the segments. On the other hand, logistics assets, the star product lately due to the boom in e-commerce, may be more sensitive to any deterioration in the macroeconomic environment. Finally, we look at the co-living segment which has been attracting a lot of investor interest recently in Spain, especially in the case of senior living, a segment with very positive prospects considering the demographic outlook that will support demand in the medium and long term and the current limited supply.
In June 2016, the United Kingdom’s vote in favour of leaving the European Union (EU) opened up a new scenario for the British economy that could have important repercussions for the Spanish economy and particularly for the tourism industry, which receives around 16 million British tourists a year1. In this article we examine the impact of Brexit on the number of British tourists visiting Spain and its potential impact in the future under different EU exit scenarios.
- 1This figure represents nearly 22% of Spain’s total inbound tourism (2018 data).
We begin the year by addressing one of the major challenges of the European and Spanish economies in a new Dossier: «An analysis of European productivity». In it, we explore the recent dynamics in productivity within the European Union, focusing on its territorial dispersion and the differentiating factors between the best and worst performing regions. After providing some initial context by outlining the main trends, we distinguish the different groups of European regions according to their productivity level and analyse the key economic factors that drive it. Finally, we identify the factors that hinder productivity growth in the Spanish economy, and those that could drive it, focusing on the evolution of productivity in the various autonomous community regions and on their defining traits, and we compare them with other European regions.
The situation of the tourism sector improved considerably during the summer months, outperforming the projections of many of the companies in the industry.
David is an economist in the International Economics and Markets Department. He holds a degree in Economics from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and a Master's degree in Economics and Finance from the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI). Before joining CaixaBank, he worked as an economist at the European Commission, the Bank of Spain, BBVA and Analistas Financieros Internacionales (Afi). His main area of study is macroeconomics, with an emphasis on long-term growth factors, international trade and structural transformations in the global economy.
Sandra is the Director of the Banking Strategy Department. With a Doctorate in Economics and a Masters in Economics, Mathematics and Econometrics from the Toulouse School of Economics, at CaixaBank she has also worked in the Department of Innovation and Digital Transformation. Before joining the bank she worked at Endesa and in the Economics department of IESE Business School. Her main areas of study are the Spanish and international banking systems, financial regulation and the impact of digitisation and new technologies on the competitive environment for banks.
David is an Economist in the Spanish Economics Department. He studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the University of Oxford, then did further study in economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and at the University of Pennsylvania. He also has a masters in finance from Bocconi University. Before joining Caixabank Research, David worked as a trainee and then as a research analyst at the European Central Bank. He is particularly interested in macroeconomics, political economy, and behavioral finance.
Oriol is an economist at the Spanish Economics Department. PhD in Economics by the London School of Economics (LSE) and MSc in Economics and Finance by Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI). Before joining CaixaBank, he worked as economist specializing on UK and Southern Europe at the National Institute of Economics and Social Research (NIESR) and as graduate teaching assistant at the LSE. His main areas of expertise include macroeconomics, with an emphasis on fiscal policy, and specializes on model-based forecasts of Spanish GDP growth.
Rita is an economist in the International Economics & Markets Department. She holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), a master’s degree (Advanced Studies diploma) in Economic Analysis and Quantitative Economics from the same university, and is accredited with the CIIA ® certification. Prior to joining CaixaBank, she worked as a research assistant at the faculty of economics at UCM, where she also taught as an associate, and as a macro analyst at Afi, Intermoney and Bankia Estudios. Her areas of research include macroeconomics, with a particular emphasis on the euro area.
Dossier
Europe's moment
In the course of 2021 we have seen that, in the wake of the pandemic, a misalignment has emerged in the real estate sector between a demand that has recovered very quickly and a supply that is more dependent on structural factors and therefore continues to lag behind. As a result of this misalignment, house prices have started an upward trend which may continue to some extent in the coming quarters as a result of higher production costs in the sector and problems with the supply of certain raw materials. Nevertheless, in the medium term, as new supply enters the market and tensions in global supply chains ease, prices should return to a growth rate that is more in line with the trend in household income.
2020 was a tough year for the tourism industry. All the data that became available at year-end show that the impact of the pandemic on the sector has been devastating. After a total standstill during the months of March, April and May 2020, tourism demand failed to pick up appreciably during the rest of the year, even during the summer months when the infection rate seemed to be under control. Moreover, the waves of COVID-19 occurring at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, together with the various measures to restrict movement and businesses, have kept tourist numbers at a minimum, aggravating the losses suffered by the sector.
The European Parliament elections this June were held at a key moment for the European construction process, taking into account the economic, political and social challenges that our continent must address in the coming years. Many of these challenges are discussed in the Dossier of this Monthly Report, ranging from the loss of competitiveness in a world that is undergoing a reconfiguration of value chains and relationships between economic blocs, to the revitalisation of productivity and technological development, to the need to push ahead with the capital markets union.
In 2023, Spain’s tourism sector remained on the path of recovery and growth, surpassing initial expectations and breaking records, not only in nominal expenditure but also in real terms. In 2024, we expect the positive trend for Spain’s tourism sector to continue and its GDP to increase by 2.5%, with the sector outpacing the overall economy and remaining one of the drivers of the Spanish economy.
Population growth has been one of the main factors that has driven the demand for housing in Spain in recent quarters and has played a fundamental role in sustaining home prices in a context of tightening financing conditions. In this article, we analyse the relationship between population growth and the evolution of home prices in the last two years. Population flows have been concentrated in large urban areas and tourist areas, and have caused a wide dispersion in the growth of home prices between the most buoyant areas of the country and those suffering depopulation.
The current crisis is triggering changes in many aspects of our lives, a large number of them related to our residential preferences. For example, working from home can transform how and where we live. The pandemic has also boosted the digitisation of the real estate sector and could speed up certain changes in other areas such as house modernisation, supporting the transition to a more sustainable economy.
The distribution of consumer spending over the month, a key question for understanding consumer behaviour, has not yet been studied in the depth it deserves because of the scarcity of high-frequency public data. How do consumers allocate their spending week by week? How much more do they spend at the beginning of the month, which is when most people are paid? Do we consume with the same intensity regardless of our age or our income? Thanks to the use of CaixaBank’s internal data on a daily frequence, we are able to carefully analyse the time patterns of consumption and answer these questions.