Home sales in Spain fall 7.7% in July, the steepest drop in over two years: what it means for the Costa del Sol

Home sales in Spain fell 7.7% year on year in July 2026 to around 60,500 registered transactions, the steepest decline in more than two years, according to the provisional land registry statistics published by the Colegio de Registradores, Spain's association of property registrars. Andalusia remained the region with the most home sales, at 12,256, although that was 7.2% fewer than in July 2025. The figure confirms that demand is cooling, but it does not signal a fall in prices, and on the Costa del Sol it calls for a more nuanced reading.

How much did home sales fall in July 2026?

Spain's land registries recorded around 118,000 property transactions of all kinds in July, 4.7% fewer than a year earlier. Roughly 60,500 of them were home sales, the category that fell the most. Every month of 2026 except June has closed with fewer home sales than the same month a year before, so July is not an isolated stumble but the sharpest drop in a trend that was already under way.

It helps to know exactly what these statistics measure. The figures are provisional, projected from 94.9% of registries, and they count registered transactions rather than signed ones: a sale usually reaches the Land Registry several weeks after completion at the notary. That is why the July figure partly reflects buying decisions made in the spring. National figures are rounded and, in the table, the change against July 2025 is shown in brackets.

Why are fewer homes being sold?

The registrars do not attribute the decline to any single cause, but the market context helps to explain it. Four factors are at work at the same time:

• A demanding comparison: July 2025 was an exceptional month, with more than 65,000 home sales and growth of 14.3%. Against that benchmark, even a reasonable month shows up as a decline.
• Prices at record highs: resale homes have posted double-digit annual price rises for 20 months in a row, according to idealista, and that affordability squeeze is holding back domestic buyers above all.
• More expensive financing: Euribor is now hovering around 3.1% after seven consecutive monthly rises, which makes every new mortgage dearer and delays buying decisions.
• Limited supply: building construction output fell 35.2% year on year in July according to Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE), and available new-build stock is increasingly scarce. With fewer homes on the market, fewer deals get done.

Which regions sell the most homes, and where are sales falling fastest?

Andalusia was the only region to exceed 10,000 home sales in July, with a 7.2% decline, slightly milder than the national average. The other three big markets fell more sharply, especially the Valencian Community and Madrid.

Only three regions sold more homes than a year earlier: Navarre (+26.4%), Castile and León (+6.2%) and Castile-La Mancha (+2.4%). At the other end are Cantabria (−17.6%), the Balearic Islands (−15.6%), and Asturias and Melilla (−15.5% each). The Balearics, Spain's most expensive coastal market, were already among the steepest declines in June: the clearest sign that prices have a ceiling too.

What is happening with mortgages?

Financing is cooling too, though less than sales. Around 57,400 mortgages of all kinds were registered in July, 0.6% fewer than a year earlier: the first fall in the total for 25 months. Home mortgages came to about 43,300, down 4.2%, the second decline of the year after May. Among the four largest regions, Catalonia was the only one where they grew, by 2.9%.

In Andalusia the adjustment is sharper: 8,232 home mortgages, down 8.4%, twice the national rate. Compared with sales, that works out at around 67 mortgages for every 100 homes sold in Andalusia, against about 72 for Spain as a whole. It is a rough indicator, since not every mortgage registered in a month finances a purchase made that same month, but it points the same way as the market: in the south, buyers who pay without a mortgage carry more weight.

What does this mean for the Costa del Sol?

The province of Malaga has one feature that sets it apart from the rest of Spain: the weight of its international buyers. According to notarial data for the second quarter of 2026, foreigners already account for 37% of home sales in the province, and in Marbella, Estepona or Benahavís that share tends to be even higher. This demand depends less on Spanish mortgages and on Euribor, which is why it cushions slowdowns in the national market.

Nor do fewer sales mean lower prices. In our September 2026 market report, based on 8,810 active listings, the Costa del Sol median holds at €650,000 and €4,657/m². These are the figures by municipality, ranked from highest to lowest price per square metre:

These are asking prices, not completed sales, and medians, so that a handful of luxury villas does not distort the picture. Nationally, idealista recorded in August the first month-on-month fall in resale prices for 43 months, of 0.3%: a sign of moderation, not of a collapse. On the Málaga coast, with little new-build supply in the pipeline and foreign demand still growing, the reasonable expectation is for prices to rise more slowly, not to fall across the board.

What should you do if you are buying, selling or investing on the Costa del Sol?

If you are buying

A market with fewer transactions favours the well-prepared buyer. There is less competition for each property, more time to review the paperwork and more room to negotiate, especially on homes that have been listed for months or came to market at an ambitious price. If you need a mortgage, get pre-approval before you start viewing and compare offers: with Euribor at around 3.1%, every tenth of a point on the margin counts.

If you are selling

Sellers no longer have the wind at their backs quite as they did a year ago. Well-located homes priced in line with the market are still selling, but overpriced ones sit for weeks without viewings and end up negotiating downwards. A valuation based on real data for your municipality, rather than on what was being asked in your building two years ago, is now the best way to sell on schedule.

If you are an investor

A market that is cooling in volume but not in price opens up occasional buying windows. Anyone buying with their own funds or with financing already secured is negotiating from a stronger position than in 2025, and the shortage of new supply continues to underpin medium-term values in the areas with the least land available.

Conclusion: a slowdown in volume, not in value

The 7.7% drop in July is a signal to take seriously: domestic buyers are feeling the strain of record prices and more expensive financing. But it does not point to a change of cycle on the Costa del Sol, where supply remains scarce and international buyers are holding up the market. To buy or sell wisely, what matters is the data for your municipality, not the headlines. At EVS PROPERTY GROUP we track supply every month in Marbella, Estepona, Mijas, Málaga and the rest of the coast, and we can help you decide with concrete figures.

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