Total property sales in Spain rose for the fourth straight month in a row in June with the second-hand home sector driving the increase, new official figures from Spain’s national statistics institute (INE) show.

Property sales in June were up 8.8% on a year earlier but the INE figures reveal it is too early to trumpet a recovery as total property sales for the period January to June 2014 were still down 5.2% on the same period in 2013.  

A total of 171,596 properties were sold in the first six months of last year, while 162,591 were sold from January to June 2014. 

Second-hand homes, where prices are still falling, saw the largest increase in the number of sales, up by 17.4% in the year to June 2014, but for new homes there was actually a 3% slip in the same period. 

In terms of the regional powerhouses, overall property sales soared 30% in Madrid, 25.7% in Extremadura and 19.3% in Navarre. The biggest loser was Castille–La Mancha where the number of house sales plummeted 21.6%.