Spanish home sales fell 11.8% year-on-year in May 2026, to 55,761 transactions, while the average transaction price rose 8.8% to 2,049 €/m² (Consejo General del Notariado, May 2026 data, released 30 July 2026). Marbella recorded 4,037 sales in the twelve months to May 2026 at an average of 4,665 €/m², up 7.68% year-on-year. The volume contraction has not reached it.
What the notaries actually reported for May 2026
The Consejo General del Notariado publishes transaction data taken from the deeds themselves, which makes it the closest thing Spain has to a record of what was actually paid rather than what was asked. The May 2026 release, published on 30 July 2026, is the sharpest volume fall the series has shown in some time — and it arrived alongside one of the strongest price readings.
The split between flats and houses is the part most commentary misses. Flats took almost all of the volume damage and produced almost all of the price growth. Houses were comparatively steady on both measures. That is not one market slowing; it is two markets moving differently under the same headline.
Residential transactions and average transaction prices in Spain, May 2026, against May 2025. Source: Consejo General del Notariado, statistics centre, data for May 2026, released 30 July 2026.
| Segment | Sales volume, change year-on-year (%) | Average price (€/m²) | Price, change year-on-year (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| All homes (55,761 transactions) | −11.8 | 2,049 | +8.8 |
| Flats | −14.1 | 2,455 | +14.0 |
| Houses | −4.7 | 1,445 | +2.7 |
The weakness was broad rather than local. Fourteen autonomous communities recorded lower sales volumes in the same release, with the Comunidad Valenciana down 35.8% and Navarra the notable exception at +8.2%. On price, Galicia was the only region to fall, at −6.8%, while Baleares rose 16.3% and Castilla-La Mancha 15.4%. A national market in which the majority of regions lose volume and almost all of them gain price is not behaving like a market in distress. It is behaving like a market where fewer people can transact.
Málaga province is cooling as well — and the numbers say so plainly
It would be convenient for anyone selling Costa del Sol property to report the national slowdown and stop there. The provincial figures do not allow it. Málaga recorded 8,837 residential transactions in the first quarter of 2026, against 9,741 in the first quarter of 2025 — a fall of 9.3%. March alone was down 13.2%.
Residential transactions in Málaga province, Q1 2026, against the same quarter of 2025. Source: provincial transaction data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, retrieved 1 August 2026.
| Measure | Q1 2026 (transactions) | Change year-on-year (%) |
|---|---|---|
| All residential transactions | 8,837 | −9.3 |
| New-build | 3,174 | −6.1 |
| Resale | 5,663 | −11.0 |
| March 2026 alone | 3,002 | −13.2 |
Resale fell almost twice as fast as new-build. That is worth sitting with. New-build supply on the coast is contracted months or years before completion and is priced by the developer, so it is slower to react to buyer hesitation. Resale is where a market’s temperature is taken in real time, and resale in Málaga province lost 11.0% of its volume in a single quarter.
January 2026 was the weakest January in four years. The province recorded 3,044 transactions that month (INE), against 3,105 in January 2025, 3,220 in January 2024 and 2,429 in January 2021. New-build was 1,298 of them, 43% of the total; resale 1,746, or 57%, of which 95 were VPO, publicly protected housing, at 3%. For context, the province closed the full year 2025 with 36,786 transactions, up 4%. The deceleration is recent, and it is real.
Nationally, the INE’s March 2026 figures showed 61,295 transactions, down 2.2% year-on-year, with new-build down 10.2% and resale essentially flat at +0.2%. Andalucía was down 6.5%. Málaga remains third in Spain for new-build sales, behind Madrid and Barcelona, and fifth overall — but a large market can shrink like any other. Anyone reading a Costa del Sol investment case that does not mention these figures is reading marketing.
Marbella is not following either pattern
Against that background, the Marbella municipal data is a genuine outlier. In the twelve months to May 2026 the municipality recorded 4,037 sales at an average of 4,665 €/m², with the average transaction value at €788,970 and prices up 7.68% year-on-year.
Marbella municipality compared with Málaga province, transaction data for the twelve months to May 2026. Source: Portal Estadístico del Notariado, retrieved 1 August 2026, except the provincial foreign-buyer share, which is noted in the cell.
| Metric | Marbella | Málaga province |
|---|---|---|
| Average price (€/m²) | 4,665 | 3,061 |
| Median price (€/m²) | 3,636 | Not published for the province in this dataset |
| Recorded sales (transactions) | 4,037 | 33,997 |
| Average transaction value (€) | 788,970 | 368,679 |
| Average surface area (m²) | 169 | 120 |
| Foreign buyers (% of purchases) | 60.9 | 31.1 (Colegio de Registradores, ERI Q4 2025 — a different source and period) |
| Price change year-on-year (%) | +7.68 | Not published for the province in this dataset |
The two columns describe different products bought by different people. The average Marbella transaction is 2.1 times the provincial average in value and 41% larger in floor area. Six in ten Marbella buyers are foreign, against roughly three in ten across the province on the registrars’ Q4 2025 measure. Treating the coast as one market — a habit I keep arguing against — produces exactly the wrong conclusion here. The detail behind the municipal figures is set out in the Marbella property market analysis for 2026 and, sub-area by sub-area, in the Marbella area guide.
Falling volume and rising prices are not a contradiction
The apparent paradox in the May 2026 release dissolves once you separate the two things a transaction count measures. Volume tells you how many buyers and sellers found each other. Price tells you what the ones who did agreed on. When supply is constrained, those two numbers can move in opposite directions for a long time without either being wrong.
A fall in volume can mean fewer willing buyers, or fewer available homes, and the price tells you which. If demand were collapsing, sellers would compete and prices would soften — as they did in Galicia, the one region where price fell in the May release. Instead, the average price rose 8.8% nationally and 14.0% for flats. The reasonable reading is that the constraint sits on the supply side and on financing capacity, not on appetite.
Marbella’s supply constraint is unusually hard. The prime coastal strip is physically bounded, buildable land is scarce, and the product that international buyers want — large, well-located, finished to a particular standard — cannot be manufactured quickly at any price. That does not make prices immune to correction. It does mean the mechanism by which a national rate-and-credit story reaches Marbella is weak. I have set out the counter-case, including where I think the risk actually lies, in whether Costa del Sol property is overvalued in 2026.
The explanation is financing — and here is exactly how far the evidence goes
The same May 2026 release contains the financing data, and it is where the Marbella divergence starts to make arithmetic sense.
Mortgage financing of home purchases in Spain, May 2026. Source: Consejo General del Notariado, statistics centre, released 30 July 2026.
| Measure | May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Purchase mortgages granted, change year-on-year (%) | −4.0 |
| Share of purchases using a mortgage (%) | 54.8 |
| Average purchase mortgage (€) | 181,976 |
| Average loan-to-price (%) | 72.5 |
The average Spanish purchase mortgage of €181,976 is 23% of the average Marbella transaction of €788,970. That single comparison does more work than any amount of commentary. A national market in which more than half of purchases are financed at an average loan-to-price of 72.5% is a market that transmits interest rates, lending criteria and affordability tests directly into transaction counts. A market whose typical purchase is more than four times the size of the average loan cannot be responding to those same forces in the same way.
What we do not have, and I am not going to imply that we do, is a Marbella-specific mortgage share. The Notariado publishes the mortgage variables at national level; the municipal dataset gives prices, volumes, surface areas and buyer nationality, not financing. So the honest statement is this: we know that nationally 54.8% of buyers borrow, we know the average loan, we know the average Marbella price, and we can put those numbers next to each other. We cannot tell you what proportion of Marbella buyers pay cash. Anyone who quotes you a precise figure for that is estimating, whether or not they say so. The mechanics of how these purchases are actually funded are covered separately in how Marbella property purchases are financed.
The credit channel is also where the valuation debate sits. The Banco de España has assessed Spanish housing as overvalued by between 1.1% and 8.5% and has explicitly declined to call it a bubble; the ECB has noted that the overvaluation is accelerating. The supervisory position is not that prices are wrong but that credit growth needs watching. If credit is the transmission channel, the segments most exposed are the ones most dependent on it — which, on the arithmetic above, is not the €788,970 end of the Marbella market.
Common questions
Are Costa del Sol prices falling?
No. Transaction prices in Marbella rose 7.68% in the twelve months to May 2026, to an average of 4,665 €/m² (Portal Estadístico del Notariado). Nationally the average rose 8.8% in May 2026 (Consejo General del Notariado). What is falling on the Costa del Sol is transaction volume — Málaga province was down 9.3% in Q1 2026 — not price.
Why are transactions down if prices are up?
Because they measure different things. Volume counts how many deals closed; price records what the closed deals cost. When supply is tight and financing is tightening, fewer buyers can transact, but those who do still compete for a limited stock. Falling prices would be the signal of weakening demand, and in May 2026 only Galicia showed one, at −6.8%.
Is this a good time to buy in Marbella?
That depends on your circumstances, not on the month. The May 2026 data shows a national volume slowdown that has not reached Marbella prices, so it offers neither a discount to seize nor a deadline to beat. The right questions are how long you will hold, whether you are borrowing, and whether the specific property is correctly priced against the recorded transactions in its own sub-area.
Does the national slowdown mean Málaga is safe?
No — Málaga province is slowing on its own account. Transactions fell 9.3% in Q1 2026 against Q1 2025, resale fell 11.0%, and January 2026’s 3,044 transactions were the weakest January in four years. The province is still third in Spain for new-build sales, but scale and direction are separate questions.
How reliable is this data, and how often does it update?
The Notariado’s figures come from the deeds themselves, so they record prices actually paid rather than asking prices. The statistics centre now updates monthly, including at municipality level, which means Marbella can be refreshed every month from one authoritative source. Registrars’ and INE data cover different periods and definitions and should not be mixed within a single comparison.
If you want the figures for a specific sub-area or property type rather than the municipal average, get in touch and I will pull the relevant Notariado series.
Sources
- Consejo General del Notariado, statistics centre — national home sales, prices and mortgage data, May 2026, released 30 July 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026. notariado.org
- Portal Estadístico del Notariado — Marbella and Málaga province transaction data, rolling twelve months to May 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026. penotariado.com
- Instituto Nacional de Estadística — residential transaction counts, Málaga province Q1 2026 and January 2026, Spain March 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
- Colegio de Registradores, Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria, Q4 2025 — foreign-buyer share by province. Retrieved 1 August 2026. registradores.org
- Banco de España and European Central Bank — published assessments of Spanish housing valuation, as summarised at 1 August 2026.