According to figures from College of Property Registrars (registradores.org) reported on the Spanish Property Insight portal, British buyers bought 4,469 homes in Spain last year out of the 26,871 bought overall by foreigners - followed by French and Russians each at about 2,600 units. The Top 10 list continues with Germany, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Sweden, China and Algeria. Total foreign purchases rose 12.7% on 2011 and made up 8.12% of all Spanish residential property unit acquisitions - around double the proportion as recently as 2009.

"Foreign buyers are now almost as important to the Spanish property market as they were in 2006, when the real estate boom was in full swing, and waves of economic and climate migrants were investing in the Spanish property dream," commented Spanish Property Insight's Mark Stücklin. "In coastal areas, where 'climate' migrants from northern Europe tend to buy holiday-homes and retirement homes, the impact of foreigners was much larger. Foreign buyers thus made up 33% of total home sales in the Alicante (Costa Blanca) region, and 25% on the Balearic islands of Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera.

"With the woeful way things are going with the Spanish economy, I expect foreigners will make up more than 10% of demand this year," Stücklin added. "Without foreign demand providing support, the Spanish property market would have gone much further down the drain in recent years. I think it’s fair to say that foreign buyers kept the wheels from spinning off the Spanish property jalopy in 2012." Despite the foreign interest, Spanish residential property took a nosedive in March after tax breaks expired, and fell below 20,000 sales for only the second time since the crisis began, according to the National Statistics Institute.

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