Sales by foreigners in Catalonia do not stop growing and in the last three years have increased by 23% (21,642 houses in 2024). From January to June of this year, sales by individuals of this group are already 11,404, 19% of the total, according to data from , which speaks of a “historic peak.” In the province of Girona the percentage rises to 24%. Of these transactions, 78% are carried out by foreigners residing in Catalonia (people born abroad with ) and 22% by non-residents, who are investors or looking for a second residence. Its profile is very different: the main settled buyers are of Moroccan, Italian and Chinese nationality; On the other hand, non-residents who purchase housing the most are from France, Germany and Holland. These buyers also purchase properties 24% more expensive than the average price of homes.
As usual, the city of Barcelona and its province eat separately: in the Catalan capital, since 2021 the sales of apartments by non-residents have doubled: if in 2021 they bought 566 apartments, in 2024 there were 1,229. Until June of this year there were 517 homes. The main nationality of non-residents is the United States, despite the Government program that until March granted residence permits to non-EU foreigners who invested in homes of half a million euros or more. In the province as a whole, among residents, the main buyers are from Italy, China, Morocco and France.
Outside of Barcelona, in 2024 and the first half of 2025, the foreigners residing in Girona who buy the most are Moroccans, French, Italians and Romanians. And non-residents, from France, the Netherlands and Germany. In Tarragona, these nationalities are repeated among non-resident buyers, while those who already live in the province who purchase the most are citizens from Morocco, Romania, Italy and Ukraine. In Lleida, Moroccans, Romanians, Italians and Ukrainians are repeated among the residents; and non-residents are French, Argentine, Andorran and so far this year French, American and Belgian. Catalonia, in addition, leads the increase in purchases by foreigners in Spain and is the community where they are produced the most, with 15% of the total in the country.
“Historical peak of purchases”
The vice dean of , Raquel Iglesias, points out that Catalonia “is at a historical peak in purchases” which is linked to two factors. On the one hand, “the roots of people of foreign nationality, who arrived a long time ago and have a desire to stay and buy like locals.” And on the other hand, “after years of certain political and legal uncertainty that has calmed down, the necessary tranquility that the market seeks to make investing attractive has returned.” In general, although notaries do not have detailed data, Iglesias emphasizes that resident foreigners buy with a mortgage, while non-residents do not finance the operations “because it is very complicated for an entity here” to lend them money.
To this phenomenon, adds the vice dean, we should add the purchases made by people born in other countries who have been in Catalonia for some time and have just left. “We notaries swear a lot of nationality and there is a notable percentage of these cases who then buy a home, another sign that they intend to stay with their family,” he notes.
They have attended these client changes as professionals and spectators. The director of Forcadell’s Residential area, Raúl Prieto, cites a nationality that is interested in buying in Barcelona that does not yet appear in the notary statistics: investors from Turkey. Like the rest of those consulted, Prieto highlights “the high degree of preparation of foreign clients who buy to invest.” “They arrive with lawyers who know the legislation and advisors,” he says. And, although they barely negotiate prices, they do require checking that everything works, down to the last detail. “They asked us to turn on the heating,” he gives as an example.
In the case of Barcelona, he details, there are French people interested in El Raval and Ciutat Vella in general, “areas to which they feel attracted.” And regarding resident buyers from China, he explains that “they look for homes close to their businesses, usually hospitality or commerce.” “Sometimes they rent and buy when the family grows, or they already own and buy larger apartments,” he says. The vice dean of notaries adds, in the case of the Chinese, that “they are a community that has had a hard time understanding the Spanish legal and tax system, but is very organized, with its own associations with which they seek advice.” In fact, in Barcelona, in the areas with the most population and businesses run by Chinese citizens, real estate agencies have opened for the community.
The deputy general director of Don Piso, Emiliano Bermúdez, highlights the correlation between the presence of a population of migrant origin and their settlement in the Catalan territory with the purchase of housing. He cites “many Moroccan residents in Lleida linked to agriculture, French people in Girona who look for the Costa Brava or the surroundings of Girona, and numerous colonies of Romanians on the Costa Dorada (Tarragona) and also Lleida.” In Barcelona, Bermúdez sees Italian buyers with a certain purchasing power growing, reaching 20% of purchases. And he observes a clear segmentation based on income: “Foreigners who reside here buy medium and low segment homes and the area is less important than for the native population: many times in their life history they have lived where they could and the location of the home does not have the aspirational or status weight that it may have for locals; while non-residents acquire the medium and high segment in Barcelona or the coast.”
America’s Homebuyer Boom
Federico Sotelo, partner of the real estate agency specialized in high standing Walter Haus points to the phenomenon of the boom in home buyers from the United States. “They have skyrocketed in the last three or four years, for a number of reasons: there was a moment of euro-dollar parity, and it paid off very well; then the Golden Visa, and now also for political reasons,” . The profiles are also different. And he cites “North Americans from large cities in California or Miami, over 50 years old who are looking for a second residence with retirement in mind, or who want a base in Europe from which to travel and Barcelona has positioned itself like other European capitals such as London or Paris, or who choose the city because for them it is small, safe, where they can go out at night to have dinner or go to the beach.” Some have it as what is known in the sector as “pied-à-terre“, Sotelo details: “An investment as a second residence or that they rent, until they retire or thinking that their children can come to study at universities.”
Regarding foreigners already residing in Barcelona who buy homes from 800,000 euros or one million, he cites “the historical ones: Belgians, French, Germans who have acquired a lifestyle in the city and decide to buy.” And it adds entrepreneurs of Chinese origin, who are looking for large homes, or also from Morocco. The Walter Haus partner remembers, on the other hand, two profiles of non-resident foreigners who had had weight and have lost it: Russians or Ukrainians.
