For the first time on record, house prices rise in all 306 municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants: not a single one is left out

22/09/2026 – ⏱ 6 min

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation of any kind.

The appraised-value statistics for the second quarter of 2026, published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda, produced a predictable headline: a new all-time high of 2,355 euros per square metre. A few days later, an analysis by CaixaBank Research of the same database has extracted a figure that did not appear in the official release and that is, in statistical terms, more exceptional than the record itself. All 306 municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants covered by the statistics closed the quarter with year-on-year price rises. All 306. It has never happened since official records began.

What it means when every municipality rises

A record average price is compatible with an uneven market: it is enough for a few large markets to pull the average up strongly while others cool. Unanimity across municipalities describes something different. It indicates that the price increase does not depend on the composition of the sample or on a handful of specific markets, but operates across the board in territories with very different economic, demographic and income structures. In practice, it rules out the hypothesis that the current cycle is a phenomenon confined to the large metropolitan areas and the tourist coast.

The contrast with the immediately preceding quarter illustrates this well. Between January and March, six towns still showed year-on-year declines: Úbeda, Hellín, Villarrobledo, Benicarló, Villanueva de la Serena and Cieza. These are mid-sized municipalities, inland or on the second line of the coast, with small residential markets and little pressure from outside demand. Three months later, none of them remains in negative territory.

Eight out of ten municipalities exceed 10%

The breadth of the movement comes with intensity. According to the analysis, 80% of municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants record year-on-year increases above 10%, with notable territorial differences but, in most cases, above the 2025 figures.

Among the large residential markets, Valencia leads the increases with 17.6%, followed by Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 15.2%; both exceed the 15% year-on-year growth threshold. Seville and Madrid are closer to the national average, and above Barcelona and Girona, where the pace of price growth has been more moderate. The pattern — the most expensive and mature markets advancing below mid-sized markets that start from lower levels — is repeated in practically all Spanish residential indicators this year.

The record, adjusted for inflation, is not a record

The report introduces a precision worth bearing in mind before using the word record. The current appraised value is 12.5% above the previous nominal peak, recorded in the first quarter of 2008. But once the series is deflated, that is, once the inflation accumulated over these eighteen years is discounted, housing is still 22.5% below that level in real terms. Both statements are correct and measure different things: the first, current euros; the second, purchasing power. Comparing 2026 with 2008 without deflating mixes two magnitudes that are not equivalent, and it is one of the most frequent confusions when reading long series of property prices.

The rise spreads just as the pace moderates

The apparent paradox of the quarter is that geographical unanimity coincides with a slowdown in pace. Quarter-on-quarter growth was 1.7%, compared with an average of 3.3% over the previous four quarters, and the 12.5% year-on-year figure is below the 13.9% of the first quarter of 2026 and the 13.1% with which 2025 closed. Both readings were also below the forecasts in circulation — 3.2% quarter-on-quarter and 14.2% year-on-year — which has led CaixaBank Research to point to a downward bias in its projection for the whole of 2026, set until now at 13.5%. The moderation is consistent with that also shown by home sales and mortgage lending.

There is no contradiction between the two facts. One thing is the speed at which prices rise and another is the proportion of the territory where they rise. The market is becoming more expensive somewhat more slowly, but everywhere at once.

The gap between permits and new households

The diagnosis of the underlying cause rests on a simple arithmetic comparison. New-build permits grew 9% year-on-year to February, reaching 141,135 units. Over the same period, the INE's Continuous Population Statistics put the number of new households formed in the last year at around 239,000. The difference exceeds 95,000 units a year and has been building for several years, so the deficit is not a one-off mismatch but an accumulated balance. For the bank's analysts, this gap between construction and household formation is the key to explaining the persistence of the increases, and there are no signs that the bottlenecks of the construction sector — serviced land, administrative lead times and labour availability — have been overcome.

The financial context adds to the structural imbalance. The European Central Bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points at its September 2026 meeting and the twelve-month Euribor has risen above 3%, its highest level of this cycle. Higher financing costs raise the monthly payment and delay purchase decisions, but they do not eliminate the need for housing: they shift it to the rental market, where supply is not growing at the pace of demand either.

Why this matters to the real-estate investor

The spread of price rises across municipalities has a direct consequence for the analysis of opportunities: it reduces the usefulness of geography as a discriminating criterion. When one part of the map was rising and another falling, choosing a location was informative in itself. If all municipalities above a certain size advance, the differentiating factor shifts towards variables specific to each transaction — entry price, construction cost, timeline, guarantee structure and developer solvency — rather than the choice of market.

There is also a reading specific to financing. The appraisal value is the reference on which lenders calculate the loan-to-value ratio, so a rising appraisal widens, on paper, the amount that can be financed against the same asset, while also raising the capital needed to acquire it. And in terms of rental yield, if sale prices advance faster than rents — as the available data for 2026 suggest — the gross yield is compressed, especially in the markets with the highest absolute values; this estimate is subject to investment risk and is not guaranteed.

A reading for the investor

These figures should be handled with caution. They are appraisal valuations, not completed transactions, and their coverage is biased towards mortgage-financed operations. Municipal data operate on samples of very unequal size: a double-digit change in a town of 30,000 inhabitants does not have the same statistical robustness as the same change in Madrid or Valencia, and the unanimity of the 306 readings is more fragile the smaller the municipality. The series is also subject to later revisions, and a figure that closes positive by a few tenths today may not do so after the next update. None of this invalidates the trend, but it does suggest reading it as a snapshot of direction rather than as an exact measurement.

Past results do not predict future ones, and all real-estate investment carries risks of illiquidity, default and total or partial loss of capital. In a scenario of rising prices and more expensive financing, in previous cycles some private capital has explored routes to real-estate exposure other than the direct purchase of a property, including regulated crowdfunding formulas. This is an observed dynamic, not a recommendation. At European level, the activity of crowdfunding platforms is governed by Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 and, in Spain, by the implementing legislation and CNMV supervision.

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