Valencia’s property market appears to have turned a corner, according to local estate agency Lucas Fox. After property prices and the number of sales transactions more or less halved from the start of the property crisis in Spring 2007 to the beginning of the recovery midway through 2014, Spain’s third city is now showing steady gains and attracting overseas property investors.

Lucas Fox reports that property sales transactions in the first four months of 2018 increased by 20% over the same period in 2017.  Data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) shows a similar trend with sales in the first quarter of this year up by 17% compared to the same period in 2017.

Property prices are currently less than half those of Barcelona and Madrid on average, according to Idealista, which shows prices in Valencia ending the first quarter of 2018 at €1,743sqm, compared to Barcelona at €4,334sqm and Madrid at €3,540sqm.

Valencia prices are picking up however – they ended Q1 2018 up €205sqm compared to the same period in 2017, showing an annual growth rate of 13%.

Lucas Fox Valencia data also shows that the number of foreign buyers has increased – from 10% of sales in the first four months of 2017 to 33% in the same period this year.