Spanish house prices grow at fastest rate since crisis
House prices in Spain rose at the fastest rate since the country’s fall into crisis, indicating the worst is over for the southern Eurozone nation.
According to official data released on Monday, the Spanish housing price index rose at 1.8% compared to a year earlier in the fourth quarter of 2014. That’s the sharpest rise since the first quarter of 2008. On the quarter, the index rose 0.2%.
Recovery in the housing market tends to be one of the first indicators of confidence returning to an economy. The uptick in business and consumer confidence in Spain together with recovery in manufacturing and services sectors since the crisis has seen the country become a star performer out of peripheral peers.
Despite unemployment remaining stubbornly high, the recovery in the property market – one of the instigators behind Spain’s downturn – is a sign of confidence in the country’s outlook.
The recovery in Spain since the crisis led the country’s President Rajoy to lift the official government forecast for economic growth to 2.4% from 2%.