Property sales in the Canary Islands are following a downwards trend and have entered a thirteenth month in decline. Figures from March 2012 show a fall of up to 22.7% over the same month of 2011 with a figure of 25,464 transactions. These are similar negative figures to those of January (-26.3%) and February (-31.8%).

Comparing March 2012 figures with those of February (2012), property sales fell by 17.2%, according to figures recently released by the National Statistics Institute (INE). For the previous year of 2011, as a whole, property sales were down 17.7% when compared to 2010, which had seen a rise of 6.3% compared to 2009.

Property sales are far below the ‘boom’ period when property transactions reached 80,000 per month, despite the reduction of tax on new housing from 8% to 4%. New property sales fell by 24.3%, to 12,209 units, while the second hand market fell by 21.3%, to 13,255 transactions.